302 replies to this topic

[David]

"The Masterbation Thread has been moved back to General Discussion."

Ta!

David

Ps. I'm not a wanker, REALLY!!!! (Har hardy harrrrr!)

[thefirstimmortal]

Most of us are well aware that If we commit certain actions against our neighbors, fighting, impoverishment and harm will result. Somehow we think these same actions create peace and plenty if applied to our community, state, nation, and world.

[thefirstimmortal]

Why is a separate forum vital?

Our sites bylaws as currently written, reflect a composite of some leaders individual beliefs that attempting to control speech is important. And for some of the reasons cited above, their points are valid.

When others resist the choices that someone will make for them, conflicts escalate and will voraciously consume resources.

A warring group is a poor one.

A seperate forum will restore the balance, and enrich the mission.

Edited by Lazarus Long, 21 November 2003 - 10:12 PM.

[thefirstimmortal]

Attempting to control others, even for their own good, has other undesirable effects.

Trying to control or manipulate those close to us creates resentment and anger. Attempting to control others in our community is destructive to the mission we want to manifest. Forcing people to do or not do something creates animosity instead of good will. Trying to control others is a cure worse than the disease.

Without the balancing Forum we would reap as we sow. In trying to control others, we would find ourselves controlled.

Like a stone thrown In a quiet pond, our desire to control our neighbors ripples outward, affecting the political course of our entire community. We cannot attempt to bend our neighbors to our will, sincere in our belief that we are benevolently protecting the mission from their folly and short-sightedness. To do so, we would seek control to create peace and prosperity, not realizing that this is the very means by which fighting and destruction are propagated. In fighting for our dream without awareness, we would become the instruments of our own destruction.

[thefirstimmortal]

Inspired by Michael Anissimov

I plan to stick to my ideals in the future, regardless of which "fights" present themselves, while continuously striving to improve them. When you commit your entire life and mind to it, I think it can be done. I believe the world today is strange enough place that being idealistic just might work as it's supposed to.

Like our country’s founders, we don’t need to choose between the ideal and the practical. Since the means used dictate the ends attained, only freedom can give us a peaceful and prosperous site. Since complete control results in fighting and strife, it Is neither ideal nor practical. Freedom will eventually become the norm because thankfully it Is both ideal and practical.

What joy to realize we needn’t spend time and effort trying to control others with force to create a wonderful site. What joy to realize that we live in a win-win world! We need not choose between one's welfare and that of others, both are served by the practice of creating a separate freedom forum. We need not choose between the individual and the common good; both benefit from freedom.

When we forsake complete control, we set the stage for cooperation and the innovative creation.

[thefirstimmortal]

To sum it all up, we have two ideas, a main site that will maintan centralization of power in the hands of the few through bylaw B, and we can have in Bylaw c a decentralizatlon of power by putting it into the hands of every individual.

As such, all of the controversial offensive and rude post will end up in the freedom forum. How should they be handled? The most compassionate act we can perform is to allow people to reap as they sow, to experience the consequences of their actions.

[Jace Tropic]

thefirstimmortal: When we forsake complete control, we set the stage for cooperation and the innovative creation.

For my own peace of mind, forget for a moment the context in which this quoted statement is being said. Consider the segmented quote “forsake complete control” in itself and the possibility of a replacement segmented quote “forsake some control.”

thefirstimmortal: The most compassionate act we can perform is to allow people to reap as they sow, to experience the consequences of their actions.

Now consider “…allow people to reap as they sow, to experience the consequences of their actions.”

How can we be justified in assuming that consequences of an individual’s or an organization’s actions are restricted only to the individual or organization that performed those actions? If we think that we don’t need justification for this assumption, isn’t that being careless?

Can we assume that logical patterns are sometimes refutable? If we are justified in assuming this, are we justified in wanting to allow individuals or organizations to take action based on previously-refuted logic? Why would anyone or anything with sense want to revel in non-their mistakes when so much is shared unless unnecessary Will is tacitly and deceptively posited? "How much is unnecessary?" may be asked. If that needs to be asked, "How much discipline, then, do we really have?" I ask.

Many times mistakes are harmless, but sometimes consequences of mistakes involve something outside of the mistake makers. I understand how optimism helps short-sighted goals to be accomplished. I don’t understand how such careless optimism and absolute trust help in much longer-term goals such as indefinite sustenance.

[thefirstimmortal]

For my own peace of mind, forget for a moment the context in which this quoted statement is being said. Consider the segmented quote “forsake complete control” in itself and the possibility of a replacement segmented quote “forsake some control.”



Now consider “…allow people to reap as they sow, to experience the consequences of their actions.”

How can we be justified in assuming that consequences of an individual’s or an organization’s actions are restricted only to the individual or organization that performed those actions? If we think that we don’t need justification for this assumption, isn’t that being careless?

Can we assume that logical patterns are sometimes refutable? If we are justified in assuming this, are we justified in wanting to allow individuals or organizations to take action based on previously-refuted logic? Why would anyone or anything with sense want to revel in non-their mistakes when so much is shared unless unnecessary Will is tacitly and deceptively posited? "How much is unnecessary?" may be asked. If that needs to be asked, "How much discipline, then, do we really have?" I ask.

Many times mistakes are harmless, but sometimes consequences of mistakes involve something outside of the mistake makers. I understand how optimism helps short-sighted goals to be accomplished. I don’t understand how such careless optimism and absolute trust help in much longer-term goals such as indefinite sustenance.

I'm sorry Jace,
I'm a little embarrassed to admit it, but I've looked at your post several times, and I don't understand it. Perhaps if you could try explain it to me like I was a 12 year old.

[thefirstimmortal]

For my own peace of mind, forget for a moment the context in which this quoted statement is being said. Consider the segmented quote “forsake complete control” in itself and the possibility of a replacement segmented quote “forsake some control.”

Now consider “…allow people to reap as they sow, to experience the consequences of their actions.”

Let me try to clarify what I meant. It may help. Consider that no alternate Forum was being proposed and we were left with only the currently revised bylaw. That bylaw is now tied to the guidlines. Let's just look at one aspect of that power, the power to delete or ban a poster for being non-courteous.

The following guidelines are here to promote constructive and thought provoking discussion.  Please consider these guidelines carefully when participating in forum discussions.
Please Be Courteous
Forum posts and topics which fail to adhere to these guidelines are subject to moderation as granted by the ImmInst User Agreement.
COURTEOUS
* Be polite when replying to others. .

Now first of all, you and I both have on more than one occasion been less than polite and courteous. At times we have been in exchages (between you and I) that could be viewed as bickering. So now we have provisions that are set to stop quarreling and squabbling. Great ideas mind you, bad for laws however. We start taking the human element out of the site.

A seperate forum solves this problem, anyone getting close to the lines, hey move 'em over to the right forum.

I should note that the bylaw is only supposed to be enacted if the problem harms the mission, but can be very widely interpreted.

Now how does this relate to “…allow people to reap as they sow, to experience the consequences of their actions."

If you and I start bickering in the main forum for instance, and someone moves us to the freedom forum so that we can continue to argue, we have several choices. Maybe we fight the points out until we agree or agree to disagree. Let's say I'm being a real dickhead, and I say some real vile stuff about you. They won't be deleted, and I wouldn't be banned from the site, but you're sure going to ban me from your list of people you want to chat with. And others, in future will have an opportunity to read that also. I will reap as I sow, I will experience the consequences of my actions.

Whatever we do to others will eventually come back to us one way or another. Any act of kindness, or spite, is sorta like a stone pitched into an endless sea. You know how ripples spread from the impact. If we plan to sail those waters forever, we might be more careful about what we toss into them.

That which leaves you is that which finds you.

Live Long and Well
William O'Rights
thefirstimmortal

[Jace Tropic]

thefirstimmortal: ...I've looked at your post several times, and I don't understand it. Perhaps if you could try explain it to me like I was a 12 year old.

Sorry about that, Bill.

What I basically see is a dead-end street regardless of choice, and some of your wording only illustrates the smug exuberance for a deceptively “open-ended” philosophy. The questions I ask implicitly oppose what I personally want to think. In so doing, the same conclusions are arrived at regardless of whose court in which the ball is. If we stick with our primitive carbon-based substrate, we die. Not good. If we don’t want to ever die, it follows that intelligence must never cease to increase in its potency, and what eventually follows from this is a single self-aware entity that has accomplished every possible goal except eternal life. Also, not good, and also, utterly pointless.

No need to acknowledge if you don’t want. Satisfactory answers are not expected to appear anytime soon. I may not have an erudite knowledge base, but it doesn’t take a genius to grasp what’s so nauseatingly predictable. Don’t think for a moment that I’m against your representative motivations. Justification is simply a matter independent of them.

[Jace Tropic]

Jace: ...forget for a moment the context in which this quoted statement is being said.

Here I am trying to set the stage for taking everything way out of the immediate context (as usual).

Everything else you said I personally accept with absolutely no problem within the setting you are considering in your responses.

thefirstimmortal: Let's say I'm being a real dickhead, and I say some real vile stuff about you.

How dare you! [g:)]

[thefirstimmortal]

thefirstimmortal: Let's say I'm being a real dickhead, and I say some real vile stuff about you.

How dare you!

Oh [:o]
[":)] I don't think I would dare [":)]

[thefirstimmortal]

No need to acknowledge if you don’t want. Satisfactory answers are not expected to appear anytime soon.

The following posts offer an exhaustive analysis of your post, in the sense that if you held your monitor above your head for several hours, you would become exhausted. I recommend you do just that before reading them so you’ll be groggy and won’t notice that the posts don’t all fit together.

I will say a lot of obvious things that you already agree with, thereby making me look like a genius. But in a departure from the past, I will also say as many controversial and inflammatory things as I can (i.e., pretending to have actual opinions).

I will talk about the future because it is an excellent topic for any person. By the time you realize I was wrong about everything, you will have forgotten all about me. Talking about the future also have a nice upside potential. For example, let’s say most of civilization is destroyed by some huge calamity. (That’s not the good part.) And let’s say a copy of this post somehow gets encased in amber and trapped in a tar pit. (It happens more often than you’d think.) Eons from now, when our descendants find it they will read my posts and believe I was a wise holy man. I think I’ll like that, except for the part about being dead.

Throughout these posts, I will delve into many areas in which I am thoroughly incompetent. My intellectual shortcomings will manifest themselves as inaccuracies, misconceptions, and logical flaws. I recommend that you read them quickly so you won’t notice.

[thefirstimmortal]

If we stick with our primitive carbon-based substrate, we die. Not good.

As Archaeopteryx was not the ultimate flier, it is hardly likely that our brains are the ultimate thinking instruments. We are just the first, crude, high-tech, capable cognitive system.

We can build better mind-body instruments. We are, after all, ape-derived with lots of room for improvement. In this view, the question is not why would we abandon the human form, but why should we keep it?

Perhaps it is time for an evolutionary upgrade.

[thefirstimmortal]

If we don’t want to ever die, it follows that intelligence must never cease to increase in its potency

If it comes to pass, the sudden and surprising replacement of humanity by more advanced minds will be another example of punctuated evolutionary change among many. It will be less remarkable than the extinction of dinosaurs, and no more remarkable than the evolution of Homo sapiens, or the origin of life itself. It will be normal. What would be peculiar is if humans were to remain dominant well into the future.

[thefirstimmortal]

In the future, they will marvel that a bunch of derived apes with computers made of jelly managed to cobble together a technological civilization and do high-level physics without blowing themselves up like kids in a fireworks factory. They will ponder with sympathetic concern the suffering and death humans were subject to. They will commit the robotic equivalent of a chuckle at the superstitious nature of people who actually believed a great spirit of the universe created and fawned over them, and then demanded their worship in exchange for a reprieve from eternal torture.

Sorry about that Bush, Just doing my part to piss of the Religious Right

[thefirstimmortal]

A grand yet subtle form of mind transfer is, and has been, happening to you Jace. Your brain underwent great changes as it grew during early childhood and then underwent a period during which the number of neurons was reduced as some were selected against when your neural network evolved. Since then, synaptic connections have continued to change dramatically. This only scratches the surface. Bit by bit, nearly every atom in your brain has been replaced as part of the normal changeover and repair taking place inside the cells. The brain you have now is not the same one you had when you were a kid, or even a few years ago. However old it may be, it’s a new machine. Yet you haven’t even noticed the mind transfer. Of course, this is an example of a gradual transfer of identity from one substrate to another, but more dramatic switches will follow the same principle.

[thefirstimmortal]

Once, no one owned a horseless carriage; soon, it became only the rich who could afford a car. Now, hundreds of millions of people, rich and poor, own cars. When Xerox launched the first commercial copier, they were hoping to satisfy an estimated total market for 5,000 machines, tops! The first few digital computers cost millions of dollars and were prized possessions of but a few institutions. Now, pocket calculators containing a single etched chip are more powerful than dozens of those early machines and cost only a few dollars each. Personal and notebook computers can out-perform mainframes of the ‘60s and will soon be little supercomputers.

The first few machines that replicate the performance of the human brain, although expensive, will quickly be followed by a series of increasingly cheaper and more affordable mass-produced models in a matter of months.

[thefirstimmortal]

As you sit reading this, your brain is running on just 16 watts of sugar and oxygen power at a cool 99 F. (By the way, the higher your IQ, the more efficient your brain is and the less energy it uses. Inefficient brains expend more energy to do less thinking.) The energy needed to run your brain is a substantial 20 percent of your entire metabolism. In terms of size, your brain is more a PC with legs than a laptop.

[thefirstimmortal]

The number of neurons in a brain is about the same as the number of stars in our Milky Way galaxy. A human brain consists of about a trillion cells. Of these, less than a fifth are neurons.

The human brain has vast numbers of neurons connected by vaster numbers of synapses all arranged in a series of interconnected subunits. The brain energizes neurons, which send electrochemical signals along wire-like connections to process immense numbers of algorithmic calculations. The best brains show there is a maximum output that cannot be exceeded. There are enormous memory banks capable of putting together a life history. An array of chemical reactions produces emotions. Put a little electricity or chemistry into a brain from the outside, and it responds by producing thoughts it would not naturally come up with. All the calculating, memory-recalling, and emotional systems combine to generate simulations of reality and unreality, past, present, and future. Destroy certain parts of the cranial organ, and specific mind functions, often conscious functions, are lost along with them, while undamaged portions of the brain continue to perform their particular mental functions. The brain is built like a machine, works like a machine, and fails like a machine. The only logical conclusion is that the brain really is a machine, a natural evolution-modified biomachine.

[thefirstimmortal]

The brain uses neural circuitry to send signals that process algorithms. This is what a computer does, so the brain is a thinking computer, a natural evolutionary bio-computer. I am not using the word “computer” as a metaphor for the brain; I am stating that the brain truly is a computer. Biologists dismissing the brain-computer congruence are in error. The same biologists are correct when they maintain that the brain is not the rigidly programmed bidigital processor that conventional computers are. Nor is it a conventional general-purpose computer doing whatever calculations are required. Every brain is a self-evolving, mass, parallel-processing instrument that uses subunits communicating with analog and digital signals to process information with cascading waves of electronic signals augmented by chemical transmitters.

[thefirstimmortal]

Considering the long-term track record of science, the attempt to understand how conscious thought is produced, or be replicated and even transferred, is likely to succeed. Just as life lost its mystery, as we became familiar with DNA and proteins, the mystery of the brain probably will evaporate as we sort out its net-working neurons.

[thefirstimmortal]

What should bother us is that those who oppose advanced genetic and cybertechnologies not only want to die themselves, but they want to make sure everyone else does, too. Why? One suspects that many people do not want to be immortal, at least as earthbound humans, yet are frightened by the end of life. They prefer a world in which the choice of death is made for them, an understandable view, immortality could seem scary to some. Problem is, everyone else has to go, as well. We should beg to differ.

[thefirstimmortal]

Some of us will oppose those who wish to impose their beliefs that death is good on others. To do such a thing is to impose a death sentence on the innocent. What we should advocate in the future is the right of minds to live as long as they wish to live. If it is possible for minds to be immortal, minds should and must have the right to pursue that immortality.

Think about it: Minds will have the right to live and the right to die. Sovereign minds will choose their fates, not have it dictated to them by mindless Nature. What could be more fair and just?

Any attempt to stop the Extraordinary Future, even if democratically decided, will be a form of tyranny, trapping minds in human bodies when alternative venues are available. It is not surprising that opposition to altering the nature of humanity is often religiously based, because believers are often autocratic and harsh with their theological clubs. In most classic religions, the rules have been set, humans are merely following an established authoritarian path with limited options.

[thefirstimmortal]

The belief that replacing human minds with cyberminds is bad is not only deeply illogical, it is also not fair to us or our descendants. As it is, every generation of human minds dies in favor of a new generation of minds. Do we not wish our children to do better than we?

For minds to abandon human systems in favor of superior ones is evolution at its best.

[Jace Tropic]

thefirstimmortal: The following posts offer an exhaustive analysis of your post, in the sense that if you held your monitor above your head for several hours, you would become exhausted. I recommend you do just that before reading them so you’ll be groggy and won’t notice that the posts don’t all fit together.

William,

First of all, I'm not worthy of even touching the evil 20.1-inch, flat-panel display in front of my eyes, so that is out of the question.

In regards to your posts, I can understand your general point in that it should certainly be possible that our minds will be replaced by better material. I have no doubt about that. However, in my last posts I am sharing reluctance toward the ultimate meaninglessness that would eventually manifest. For example, we can presently see the trend with increasingly better surveillance; and not only better, but also there are increasingly more systems being installed everywhere as far as I can tell. (However, I am uninformed about which ideology encourages it the most; it seems about even.) Once minds and computers begin to merge, there is no logical barrier for obstructing the trend toward one self-aware entity. If you think about, why would it be logical to place limits on knowledge? Minds, organic or inorganic, contain information. Information is knowledge. Knowledge is used as the basis and for abstract manipulation to increase intelligence. Intelligence must be accounted for since it is dangerous not to account for it, especially since intelligence is power.

[thefirstimmortal]

William,

First of all, I'm not worthy of even touching the evil 20.1-inch, flat-panel display in front of my eyes, so that is out of the question.

[thefirstimmortal]

Well,
I had problems logging in, but I made it to a chatroom, I don't know if it was the right chatroom. I logged in around 6:45, but I saw no conversation about this topic matter.

I've PM'd all leaders asking for a moratorium on all editing of posts until we have in place a black and white policy.

We will have a chat this Sunday 7pm. You're welcome to join us.
http://www.imminst.org/chat room #leadership

I stuck around to watch the Charles Pratt Chat, although he did not show up, I had a great time anyways. It was real fun.

Live Long and Well,
William Constitution O'Rights, AKA Boston T. Party

[Bruce Klein]

William,

heh.. thought that was you.. but didn't want to spoil the fun. Thanks for joining the chat.. we need to set you up as a featured guest.. with a hard juicy topic.. be thinking.

We didn't have the Leadership chat.. sorry.. in the Leadership forum we made good progress with guidelines.

Incidental, can you bring me up to date on your ideas of creating a new freedom forum vs. using the Catcher?

[Lazarus Long]

Topic suggestion: Critical Dissent
The imperative of alternative viewpoints and the vital importance of divergent opinion for evolution.

Short form; How unanimity could mean the death of us all [":)]