Re: virus: Metasystem Transition

Dan Plante (danp@ampsc.com)
Thu, 30 Jan 1997 21:38:05 -0800


At 10:57 PM 1/29/97 -0800, Tim Rhodes wrote:
>
>On Wed, 29 Jan 1997, Dan Plante wrote:
>
>> Scenario:
>> The year is 2050. The pace of scientific and technological progression
>> has accelerated unabated....
>
> You present a wonderful piece of science fiction. And just that.
>

Such nastiness. What did I do, run over your dog, or something?

>
> The critical element in human culture is not knowledge, but
>ignorance.

The critical thing that exists in human culture is that which does
not exist. Gotcha. Try this one:

The critical element in this memetics list is people sharing ideas (or
refutations) about memetics and the meta-system transitions they imply,
as well as speculating about future developments. That's what my previous
post was all about. Maybe I was being obtuse....

>Our "free will" (to reply to "C of V: Another Religion" as
>well) lies in the information we chose to share with those that lack it.
>We have built wonderful, beautiful, intricate structures in our societies
>as well as in our own psyches to regulate the flow of information.
>Language being one of them. As are behavior and science. Art another,
>more restrictive and subtle form. The fact that you may posses knowledge
>that I do not, or vice versa, is what compels me to listen to you and you
>to me. I don't want (or even need) all of your knowledge. To me the
>intrigue is in watching your internal editing process at work. This is
>what tells me how "you" think.

Then it should come as no suprise to you that I think you do so poorly
at that which you profess to enjoy, that you should consider giving it
up before the frustration makes you bitter...."intriuging" or not.

>It's not your words or your ideas as much
>as the choices you make in parceling them out, that allows me to see you
>as a unique and valuable entity.

Aww, shucks.

> The appeal of such implants would end as soon as someone with
>views such as mine joined the "Meta-Mind".

Nope. The MetaMind I postulated in the (I admit, rather amateurish)
scenario would sample and distribute your concepts, which would then
be picked up, contemplated and added to or revised by other individuals,
iteratively and concurrently, millions of times a second, until they
were, by that process, found valid/esthetically-pleasing and entrenched
in the ideasphere, or very quickly found to be "junk thoughts" - just
more semantically uncoordinated mental ramblings, and eventually peter
out. The critical components, and why their inter-operation would
manifest itself in this particular dynamic, were, I believe, made
abundantly clear, but you could look at it as essentially the same
process that goes on inside your own head, or, alternatively, as a
peer-review process, where you submit a paper (an idea), and you get
a summary of the analysis by your peers (all individuals connected to
the Bio-Net that are thinking about or interested in the same thing)
sometime later (almost instantly). What you would percieve is: You
would have a thought/idea/vision/concept, then discard the idea for
reasons that weren't obvious to you a second ago, but are now. You
would then suspect that it was due to the almost sub-concious
evaluation and critique of those ideas by untold individuals on the
Bio-Net (shorthand: the MetaMind), because you just /know/ that you
never ran across the knowledge that showed the idea to be silly
/anytime/ before in your life. I'm belabouring this point because I
know how much you enjoy sharing interesting and exciting ideas in
a friendly, civilized forum, and I didn't want you to feel left out.

>
>> Smartasses welcome. Dumbasses must leave the list. Make it so...
>>
>> Dan
>
> And Star Trek junkies should spend more time getting their Sci-Fi
>stories published, instead of filling up our mailboxes. :-)
>

You childish attempt to defuse an obvious personal attack with a
smiley-face is so utterly inept, even /I'm/ embarassed. How old are
you anyway?

That little witicism at the end of my post was intended to mean "Who
cares what their motivations are, as long as their posts are reasonably
literate and they have something marginally useful to contribute to the
subject of the list. Food for thought, Tim.

>- Prof. Tim

P.S.: What's "Star Trek"?

Dan Plante

-------------------------------------------------------------
The Metasystem Transition History of the "Dan Plante" System

initial conditions = data (conception)
control of data = information (conception to puberty)
control of information = knowledge (puberty to marriage)
control of knowledge = wisdom (marriage to divorce)
-------------------------------------------------------------