I can't imagine watching all that.  Do people?

On Nov 13, 2023, at 6:43 PM, David Eric Smith <desm...@santafe.edu> wrote:

 Well in that case, definitely look up the interview he did with Sara Walker 
and Lee Cronin.

I will not comment further.

Eric



On Nov 13, 2023, at 5:57 PM, Steve Smith <sasm...@swcp.com> wrote:



On 11/13/23 12:06 PM, glen wrote:
You might want to check the Gurometer. Lex has an entry:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Oe-af4_OmzLJavktcSKGfP0wmxCX0ppP8n_Tvi9l_yc/edit?usp=sharing

While Lex's scores are relatively low compared to some of the wackos on the 
list, we are known by association. And many of Lex's guests score relatively 
high.

Fascinating resource,  thanks!  You are a veritable font (fount) of things like 
this that I should probably be able to find for myself.

I had to look a little to find a key to the columns of the  table, I don't know 
if this is the preferred or only one, but it seemed close enough to be useful 
for my purposes:

https://techhenzy.com/gurometer/<https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2ftechhenzy.com%2fgurometer%2f&c=E,1,-jmX3-GnKvHRZ-U6g3sLfGsk8ntKDTZ0snin2zifY--Hno29Qx92h9fhySz8IXtuihWQCxiEVogT6296DEPPb4qsdNHWD6ZIX5ul4F-34Wihzhuu&typo=1>

I haven't listened to enough of Lex's podcasts (did I mention 1-2 hours each?!) 
to be able to evaluate what his "coupling" is with his guests... even without 
the GuruMeter I felt that theme ("known by association") from the more 
prominent/recent interviewees he has engaged... but my contingent judgement of 
the *content* and *style* of the interviews counterbalanced that almost to an 
extreme.   Which is why I brought it up here.

Implicit but likely opaque/arcane to your own references to community (self) 
policing and ?agonism?, I feel (with limited experience so far) that Fridman 
may well provide a regulating role within some community (of Galaxy-Brain 
Gurus?)...

I doubt I will get the 'round t'uits but it seems like there is a tensor 
product to be explored among these folks and their various interactions with 
one another...   something interesting might emerge?   Maybe this only occurs 
to me because Lex is more of a coupling agent than a primary source of any 
ideas/theories/positions from what I've seen so far.   I haven't investigated 
the GuruMeter guys enough to understand their methods but I take it for granted 
they are not unserious in this work.


On 11/13/23 10:08, Steve Smith wrote:
It seems (maybe only to me?) that "will" is what defines the intersection of 
memory and imagination?   The free-will-less-ness-ers among us (ala Sopolsky 
<https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/oct/24/determined-life-without-free-will-by-robert-sapolsky-review-the-hard-science-of-decisions><https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.theguardian.com%2fbooks%2f2023%2foct%2f24%2fdetermined-life-without-free-will-by-robert-sapolsky-review-the-hard-science-of-decisions&c=E,1,91wHpfNIkmXC-CnGi3PazdL_hQlw2NlNpCoVT3nJCuot5r9OAZsB0usPuLlH6_6rlBoDorx2bLYVT55_T9jETx_-4wilrXWAjG-3MNgonMWE9w,,&typo=1>)
 may find this an entirely specious thing to consider or discuss (though 
without free will, what means "specious" or "discuss" or "consider" sans 
free-will?).

I recently discovered Lex Fridman's podcasts 
<https://lexfridman.com/podcast/><https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2flexfridman.com%2fpodcast%2f&c=E,1,QWrnSg3KQcihreIAIaA74In11b90OwQV4DbIgelWBXYN4Ud1PK0WvNTlNakcIB0zdfgEMx2X6t8b-1_TPyUhzXpNMlaFz3z4sKIKjXliwZAs&typo=1>
 and was quite surprised by several things (albeit with very limited 
sampling... all of his most recent interview with Musk and a bit of his 
interview with Isaacson and about half of the Harari one):   I don't 
significantly disagree with the general mistrust of Musk in his Autistic-ish 
style and affect, but I'd say that Lex brings out the best in him, showing him 
to be capable of thoughtful and even empathetic-ish observations.  As I 
understand it (from my reading of Isaacson's biography of Musk) brother Kimball 
may also be a significantly similar "regulating influence" on Elon.   Grimes 
maybe, maybe not.  The other mothers of his children, same-same... probably 
each and all of them for a period of time or within certain frameworks.   And 
again, same with the children... though maybe projection on my part having been 
moderately well-regulated in several modes by my own children during each of 
their phases (right up to their current middle-agedness).

As an aside, Fridman's other interviews also all sound potentially 
fascinating... though I cringe at the fact/thought of interviews with 
Netanyahu, KanYE, Kushner, Rogan...     the commentary I've read around those 
interviews tends to skew toward "how could you normalize (amplify?) those 
A**holes by even giving them the time of the day???!!!?".   Lex's interviews 
are definitely long-form (1-2 hours) compared to today's 
tik-tok/ad-jingle/bumper-sticker/snark-pith calibrated sound-bitery.    I find 
myself avoiding them for this reason (not wanting to commit to listening past 
some of my own prejudices long enough to hear what they are really about?) but 
recognize (and have already begun to practice) that as with long-form written 
journalism, I can take it in bits, like I might eat a rich holiday meal... not 
try to gulp it down quickly in one sitting like a TV-dinner (for you X-ers, 
"Hot-Pocket", and Millenials == "??") for the mind.

My recent fascination with Deacon's "Teleodynamics", Jeff Hawkins' take on the 
structure/function of the neocortex and Ian McGilchrist's updated  take on 
brain bicameralism (Master and Emissary 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_and_His_Emissary><https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_and_His_Emissary>)
 feeds into this question of the intersection of memory and imagination and the 
implications of Transformer Models and other Generative Models in general.   My 
direct experience with GPT-4 and DALL-E is significant (many 10s of hours of 
engagement) but still a drop in the bucket.  There are times when I feel that 
all I've done is engaged with an incredibly high-dimensional 
french-curve/bezier spline and thereby been able to smoothly 
interpolate/extrapolate a handful of interesting (to me) data points into what 
feels like a powerful elaboration of what is implied by said curve-fit in the 
past (unknown knowns?) and future (unknown unknowns)?    When I'm not totally 
enraptured by the (apparent?) novelty (relative to my expectations/predictions) 
of it's responses I'm generally disappointed at it's limited creativity...   
and left puzzling over the question of "novelty vs creativity".

Bumble,

  - Steve

On 11/13/23 10:27 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
It seems to me that neither Musk and Thiel are interested in the unknown. They 
are interested in doing things they can already imagine.    For Musk I thought 
that was because it is how he raises money.   Now I think he is not imagining 
consciousness in a, say, a transporter pattern buffer, he imagines life on the 
Enterprise bridge in his body.   Rockets are comparatively science fictiony for 
people that can't imagine transport without a car, so he gets some points for 
that.
On Nov 13, 2023, at 10:11 AM, 
glen<geprope...@gmail.com><mailto:geprope...@gmail.com>  wrote:

There's an interesting parallel between the Stross and Gellman pieces: Stross 
both laments and implicitly appreciates the bureaucracy of getting a book 
published, where Thiel's aggrieved by the bureaucracy of societal evolution.

It reminds me of the engineering-vs-biology dichotomy (yes, false, like all of 
them) I came to appreciate after being exposed to enough biomimetics (to kill a 
horse). Some of us see the world and think about how to change it, build a 
better world ... or perhaps destroy the world, whatever floats your inner 
engineer. And some of us see the world and are awestruck, hypnotized, baffled 
by its qualities (whether beautiful or horrifying). It's easy to give the 
latter a pass and denigrate the former when confronted with, say, butterflies 
or the Grand Canyon. And it's easy to give the former a pass when confronted 
with poverty and war.

But the next time you're at the DMV or arguing with some poor sucker manning 
the phones at the IRS, it can be useful to remember the falseness of the 
dichtomy. Similarly, when all you want to do is sleep under the stars and those 
damned gnats keep homing into your ears, it can be useful to think like an 
engineer.

Policy and science fiction aren't that far apart.

On 11/10/23 13:46, Marcus Daniels wrote:
original.png
Peter Thiel Is Taking a Break From 
Democracy<https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2023/11/peter-thiel-2024-election-politics-investing-life-views/675946/?utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share><https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2023/11/peter-thiel-2024-election-politics-investing-life-views/675946/?utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share>
On 11/10/23 11:26, Roger Critchlow wrote:
Text of Charlie Stross' talk to Next Frontiers Applied Fiction Day in Stuttgart 
on Friday November 10th, 2023, concerning where the techno-industrial elite 
found their horrible philosophies/secular religions.
https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2023/11/dont-create-the-torment-nexus.html<https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.antipope.org%2fcharlie%2fblog-static%2f2023%2f11%2fdont-create-the-torment-nexus.html&c=E,1,npJ9AGeEQaUqgDJWMftMsnL-pymj_8pksBePVrbQ_gdF_v3fw88D4pk5N0nHIICGXPhItn57qErQ9u7HSkuvSqtpYRapdSTtpENo508PmwuMPlc7ou5f6pLrIPnj&typo=1>
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