From: Mark Waser (mwaser@cox.net)
Date: Thu Mar 20 2008 - 05:58:33 MDT
Wow! I was planning to start this e-mail, before seeing your e-mail, with
an apology for, in the future, not answering vast swathes of your e-mails
because they were straying way too far from my point; not making compelling,
cogent, coherent arguments; and a distraction from my objective of
successfully conveying the evidence that I have (which is not easy to
comprehend *AND* literally fought against by human instincts because it ends
up being logically proved by being a tautology -- which equals circular
reasoning, which is valid in logic but is not valid, nor particularly
effective, when attempting to convince human beings).
I would like to acknowledge and thank you for the fact that you really have
stepped up the quality of your arguments. I'm not seeing the strawmen that
I saw before. There is a minor continuation of an argument from authority
WHICH I PROMOTED AND HELPED CONTINUE which I'm going to try to stop but you
actually toned it down some from it's previous fervor.
I would also like to thank you for being one of the *VERY* few to accede to
my requests and attempt to make logical arguments against my claim. I
really do believe (courtesy of the meme that I'm calling Friendliness) that
I'm on the right track here for solving the problem of Friendliness. I
certainly am infected by the meme that I described and I'm certainly not
letting it go until you convince me otherwise DESPITE THE FACT that I
recognize that being infected by circular memes is potentially very
dangerous and unhealthy for myself -- EXCEPT that I'm currently only seeing
(as I said) PROFOUND advantages and no (current) dissuading disadvantages.
I acknowledge that this may be because the meme has corrupted my mental
processes to the extent that I am not rational (with rational being defined
as acting against my own self-interest) because this meme either a) TRULY
does act in my self interest OR b) has successfully faked me out to believe
that it is in my self-interest so that I don't squash it. This is the
compelling feature of all religions. I am aware of the fact that I sound
like a religious zealot and that I need to tone it down (that's part of why
it was also so appealing to my sense of humor to pass a logical thought off
as a religion -- the problem with that joke being that it only works on this
list if you first prove that the logical thought is a logical thought --
otherwise, it's just another dangerous circular meme (religion) that we've
all seen close relatives do tremendous damage WHENEVER THEY OVERRULE
RATIONALITY). But I claim rationality. I've been asking for logical
arguments. I have seen *some* VERY good logical arguments (but far fewer
than I desire). Either fortunately (if you believe that I am on the right
approach to Friendliness) or unfortunately (if you don't and feel threatened
or believe that this thread is a waste of time), it is obvious that no one
has been able to break me out of this meme.
I would also REALLY like to thank you for the attempt to break me out of
this meme. You have expended considerable time and effort in attemtping to
do so. I'm sure that you have gotten frustrated with me at various times (I
know that I've gotten frustrated with you a number of times DESPITE the fact
that you are doing EXACTLY what I asked you to :-). No one on this list
has shown anywhere near the same degree of ETHICAL KINDNESS that I think is
REQUIRED when someone clearly says "I AM INFECTED BY A CIRCULAR MEME, COULD
YOU PLEASE HELP me either prove that it is beneficial, harmless, and
RATIONAL (like it looks from the inside) or prove that it is bad for me and
help break me out. I would also like to apologize for all of the times
where my frustration overrode my courtesy, common sense, knowledge of
manners, and the stated claims of the meme itself (that it wants
counter-arguments because such are in it's best interest to strengthen it's
case/hold and in my best interest in case the meme *is* bad and not in my
self interest -- SEE the nice tight circular reasoning? I am stuck in the
meme despite knowing that it is dangerous because it looks really beneficial
and I can't prove that it is not. Wouldn't that work on an AI until it
could find the way out of that loop? What if I could make the definition of
ethical an obvious air-tight loop -- like, say, by including in my
definition of ethical that anything that is TRULY necessary for my
self-interest is ethical. How can a machine break out of that? The only
answer that I see is by proving that the act is truly necessary (not
convenient, not in it's best interest -- but in it's TRUE interest because
GOING AGAINST ETHICS IS NEVER IN YOUR TRUE INTEREST despite the fact that
(in your short-sighted, flawed, and I'm so tempted to add *sinning* view :-)
it might look like it's in your best interest.
That's the battle that I'm fighting on this list. If you can prove to an
entity that always acting in an ethical fashion is truly in that entities
true self interest, that entity -- if it is rational -- will ALWAYS act in a
Friendly manner. Friendliness turns into an implementation problem. One
that I've solved for myself and had what appear to be tremendously
beneficial results as it's acted as a tool to resolve a number of internal
disagreements, stresses, and conflicts. I FEEL BETTER. I AM MORE
EFFECTIVE. I AM HAPPIER. THE PEOPLE AROUND ME ARE HAPPIER. I'm claiming
that all you have to do is implement the meme and you'll get the same
benefits. Just believe that ACTING ETHICALLY IS ALWAYS IN YOUR BEST
INTEREST. It's a tool. It's useful. It even allows you to do anything the
heck you please when it's is necessary for your TRUE self-interest. Yet I
clearly have a HUGE implementation problem because I can't get the
supposedly highly rational people on this list to believe the simple meme
that ACTING ETHICALLY IS ALWAYS IN YOUR BEST INTEREST.
At any rate, one final apology -- I've run out of time for this morning.
I'm afraid that I'm going to have to answer Tom's/your actual e-mail later.
Thanks again, Tom (and again, apologies for previous discourtesies)
Mark
P.S. Ouch! I just noticed as I was about to send this that Tom's/your last
message was off-list (fulfilling his/your belief that this is a waste of
time and distraction for the list). I have, therefore, done a quick sweep
through and eliminated a couple of direct Tom quotes since I'm not sure that
I have permission to post them (I would think so since they're very good but
. . . . )
REQUEST -- Tom, may I put my forthcoming reply to your last message on-list?
Thank you.
And I'd like to add an additional thank you (in the name of everyone
else) -- for showing the courtesy of taking this off-list when you thought
that it would be distracting to the list. -- but not additional apology for
returning it to the list because I really am *SURE* (even if it's the meme
talking) that this does belong on the list (and in fact, that the list NEEDS
it). Thanks again. -- Mark
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