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Hal's Extropians Digest      Tue, 16 Jun 1992       Volume 92 : Issue   0007

    Selected messages from the Extropians list.  To join, send to:
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    Hal Finney
    Extropians Digest Moderator

Today's Topics:
	     Ethics & the prisoner's dilemma (5 messages)
	     Ethics, Extropianism, and ESSs (4 messages)

Administrivia:

This digest contains mostly philosophical messages.  Where possible, I
will try to collect those threads into separate digests.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 15 Jun 92 7:20:30 EST
From: Ian Woolf <uunet!ips.oz.au!ian>
To: Extropians@gnu.ai.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Ethics & the prisoner's dilemma

Hal Finney asserted the following:

} Dilemma.  The basic point is that whatever strategy you choose is
} likely to be chosen by others.  If you choose to cooperate, it's more
} likely that others will also do so.  This is because the situation you
} face is the same as everyone else's, so whatever strategy reason
} guides you to is the same strategy it will guide others to.

This looks like magical thinking to me! How can what you think affect the
thinking of others unless you communicate with them? Nobody knows your
stategy until AFTER you've used it, so how can your choosing affect anyone
until after the fact? It would seem that you are only right if everyone
believes in this "thought influence" also, or are you saying probability
gets bent?

} OTOH, if you do vote, then you're the kind of person who votes, so
} people who are like you will probably vote, too, and so whomever you
} vote for will benefit not only from your vote, but from the votes of
} people like you.

ONLY if you communicate your intentions to everyone around you, particularly
those who are like-minded. Its like voodoo curses, you have to know about it
for it to even have a chance of affecting you.

} think Mike Price's example was better: suppose you were playing a
} one-shot Prisoner's Dilemma against a recent copy of yourself.  This
} example makes it even more likely that the other person will do the
} same thing you decide to do.  Would you defect even in this situation?

I wouldn't defect, I'm a *nice* guy! :-)

--

Ian Woolf                 ian@ips.oz.au
IPS Solar Observatory    Phone: +61 67 959 211 or +61 67 924 537
PO Box 372                 FAX: +61 67 959 266
Narrabri NSW 2390
Australia

As soon as you can say what you think and not what some other person has
  thought for you, you are on the way to being a remarkable man.
      -- James M. Barrie

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 14 Jun 92 17:38:45 EDT
From: Mark Edward Desilets <uunet!skylab.src.umd.edu!desilets>
To: Extropians@gnu.ai.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Ethics & the prisoner's dilemma

>
> Hal Finney asserted the following:
>
> } Dilemma.  The basic point is that whatever strategy you choose is
> } likely to be chosen by others.  If you choose to cooperate, it's more
> } likely that others will also do so.  This is because the situation you
> } face is the same as everyone else's, so whatever strategy reason
> } guides you to is the same strategy it will guide others to.
>
> This looks like magical thinking to me! How can what you think affect the
> thinking of others unless you communicate with them? Nobody knows your
> stategy until AFTER you've used it, so how can your choosing affect anyone
> until after the fact? It would seem that you are only right if everyone
> believes in this "thought influence" also, or are you saying probability
> gets bent?

  I think you misunderstand.  Hal's point (and Axelrod's and Dawkins') is
  that if the ESS is calculable to a rational individual, and all
  individuals playing the game are rational, then all will choose the
  ESS, because it is (expected) payoff optimal.  Therefore, players will
  *independently* arrive at the ESS.  You seem to be assuming that
  players choose strategies *randomly*, in which case, you argue, there
  should be no correlation between the choices of players.  This is
  (almost trivially) true.  However, the existence of objective
  criteria by which rational players may determine the payoff for
  each strategy makes the ESS the correct and most likely choice for
  a game consisting of rational and (may we say) omnipotent players.
  Thus you would expect a high degree of correlation (perfect correlation
  for omnipotent rational players).  The degree of correlation,
  of course, decreases with ether player knowledge or player rationality.

  Is this clear?  Do you still disagree with Hal's paragraph above?

                                                                Mark

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 14 Jun 92 22:39:31 PDT
From: uunet!xanadu.com!tribble (E. Dean Tribble)
To: Extropians@gnu.ai.mit.edu
Subject: Ethics & the prisoner's dilemma

Hofstadter's SuperRationality (and Geneserrith's Common Behavior
assumption) assumes that there is a single rational behavior that
everyone will find as the fixed-point of all their actions.  This
assumption is bogus.  What's rational depends on what you know about
the other players (even statistically), and how the incentives steer
you, not on what is optimal.

Further, the superRational solution is not an ESS (evolutionarily
stable strategy), so it is similarly not the right thing to do (a
superRational population can be profitably invaded by defectors).
It ignores the incentives.

For instance, for a single iteration of the prisoner's dilemna in the
Axelrod game, the more likely you are to cooperate, the bigger the
payoff for me to defect (I make 5 points instead of 3) Likewise, the
more likely you are to defect, the better it is for me to defect
(because I make 1 point instead of 0).  Therefore, in both cases I
should defect, even though cooperating is the 'SuperRational'
solution.

The iterated prisoner's dilemna is extremely well described and
analysed in the Comparative Ecology paper (by Mark Miller and Eric
Drexler) one of the famed :-) agoric papers.

dean

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 15 Jun 92 10:54:28 EDT
From: uunet!gnu.ai.mit.edu!rjc
To: Extropians@gnu.ai.mit.edu
Subject: Prisoner's Dilemma and life


   I glad that most humans don't always cooperate. Why? Because
if they did, we'd have no competition in the market, every company
would be in a trust, and the system would be static. By "defecting"
in the market, one stimulates other companies to lower their
prices. This is the reason trusts do not work because one of the
corporations always defects and undercuts other trust members.

   Consider what would happen if cooperation was the defacto
standard in life instead of a mixed system of cooperation with
defection. Evolution would probably be at a standstill, most animals
would share territory instead of fighting for it.

   I think we see so much non cooperation out there because cooperation
is not always the rational decision.  If everyone else cooperates,
it's best for you to defect and reap the rewards. The more people that
cooperate, the bigger the payoff.

   In a non-iterated prisoner's dilemma, defection is always the choice.
Why? Because you can't assume everyone else will cooperate, and if you
cooperate and someone else defects, you lose big time (suckers payoff)

  I believe the probability of winning is maximized if you defect.
If you defect, and the other person doesn't, you win big. If you defect,
and the other person does too, you both end up with nothing,or a very
small payoff. There's also the element of "bringing your opponent
down with you." You don't want someone to sucker you and get away
with it, so as long as you defect, you can atleast delight in the knowledge
that he's just as bad off as you are.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1992 19:41:55 +0000
From: uunet!information-systems.east-anglia.ac.uk!jrk (Richard Kennaway)
To: Extropians@gnu.ai.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Ethics & the prisoner's dilemma

rjc@edu.mit.ai.gnu writes:

>   In a non-iterated prisoner's dilemma, defection is always the choice.
>Why? Because you can't assume everyone else will cooperate, and if you
>cooperate and someone else defects, you lose big time (suckers payoff)

Hal Finney writes:

>The basic point is that whatever strategy you choose is
>likely to be chosen by others.  If you choose to cooperate, it's more
>likely that others will also do so.

Dan Davis writes, replying to Hal Finney:

>I don't think so. New kind of causation we have here; if I think
>something, then you probably will too. Your choice has *no*way* to
>effect their choice, so don't try to "cause" them to make a certain
>choice.

And round and round it goes.

"Whatever anyone else does, defection is better than cooperation.
Therefore you should defect."

"If other people are like you, they are likely to act the same as you,
hence cooperation is better."

"But whatever anyone else does, defection is better than cooperation!
Therefore you should defect!!"

"BUT IF OTHER PEOPLE ARE LIKE YOU..."

etc.  I don't believe there is a solution.  There are cast iron,
irrefutable arguments on both sides.  People can be divided into two
classes, depending on which argument they accept, and which argument
they think they are refuting by merely reciting the opposing argument.

In practice, people tend to try to change the payoffs to avoid the
situation.  Even in Iterated PD, reputation is often seen to be
insufficient to ensure cooperation.  Criminals beat up informers,
professional bodies strike off members, trade unions ostracize
strike-breakers, and, for that matter, people join together to create
laws and law enforcement.

rjc@edu.mit.ai.gnu also wrote:

>After all, if you're never going to interact with this person >again,
why do you care if you cheat them?

Ethics?  Not the absolute ethics most of us here (including me) love
to scorn, but merely personal ethics.  There are some of us who would
decline to cheat, rob, kill, or whatever for gain even if we knew we
could get away with it.  I don't think the reasons can be explained to
anyone who doesn't already understand them.  (Saying that we don't
perceive such acts as being in our self-interest merely begs the
question.)

Here's another interesting example of PD, from a documentary I saw on
the hoboes who ride the freight trains in the US.  One of them made
the point that they all tend to be very polite and honest with each
other, because the lifestyle means that any of them could easily kill
anyone they ride with, dump the body in the wilderness, and be
hundreds of miles away before the body was found.  The reward for
defecting to a cooperator is perhaps small, but nonzero.  The penalty
for cooperating with a defector could hardly be larger.  And if you
don't make a habit of it, you won't get a reputation.  Yet cooperation
is the norm.  Why?  It's not as if they were too stupid to know that
they should be at each others' throats - I have heard that hoboing
requires somewhat greater intelligence than more humdrum lifestyles.

If you're never going to interact with this person again, and no-one
else will ever know, why do you care if you kill them for a few
dollars?

--
Richard Kennaway     SYS, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, U.K.
Internet:  jrk@sys.uea.ac.uk               uucp:  ...mcsun!ukc!uea-sys!jrk

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 13 Jun 92 13:47:08 PDT
From: uunet!autodesk.com!robertj (Young Rob Jellinghaus)
To: Extropians@gnu.ai.mit.edu
Subject: Ethics, Extropianism, and ESSs

The ethics thread has been moving in the direction of viewing ethical
systems as being collections of associated memes, which collectively
form an evolutionarily stable strategy.  In a society dominated by
such memes, it is in the long-term interest of each individual to
behave according to the dominant memes.  Individuals who behave
otherwise are penalized; they are less successful than those who
follow the system.

The primary basis for this view is that it abstracts away claims of
"absolute correctness" for any ethical system.  Ethics (and laws, as
they are in some sense codified ethics) are subject to evolution and
to the constraints of the environment.  Just looking at the social
structures that have been tried throughout history makes this very
clear... attempting to live an extropian life in 12th century Europe
would have been a profoundly unsuccessful strategy.

Note well that individuals may well pursue conflicting individual
strategies!  It may be that there is an ongoing dynamic tension
between different ways of behaving, and that the stable state is for
some proportion of the population to behave in one way, while some
other proportion behaves in another.  This is fundamental to the
notion of ESSs.  If there are two strategies A and B, the ESS will
seldom be for all to follow A or for all to follow B.  Rather, a
balance between A and B evolves, such that if A becomes predominant
the environment is more hospitable for B, and vice versa.  A and B are
part of the same system, but have different rules for individual
behavior.  So we have two levels: the codes which individuals follow
(A and B), and the overall system.

Now, many have claimed that extropianism is simply another step along
this road.  But it is a very novel step indeed, and in some ways
unlike any previous system I'm aware of.

In many ways extropian principles form an individual ethical code.
Extropians clearly believe that non-coercion and individual choice
form an optimal (or close to it) strategy for a society.  In this
sense extropianism is A, while (say) statism is B.

Another part of the extropian system, however, is an emphasis on
evolving new ethical codes and laws.  Polycentric law is a structure
which is intended to facilitate multiple codes of behavior (multiple
ethics, in a sense) within a common framework, and individuals are
free to choose their legal code as they like.  Here we have a meme
system which is attempting to cross levels:  it is a strategy for
creating _new_ ESSs, as well as a strategy which may form part of an
ESS itself.

We all seem to agree that extropianism, as such, is a strategy which
seems likely to have widespread influence in the worldwide ethical
system in the future.  That is, we extropians believe that
extropianism is increasingly an ESS itself.  What are the impli-
cations of this claim?

As mentioned above, no strategy lives in a vacuum.  There are a
multitude of competing strategies, and when one becomes dominant,
competing strategies suddenly find themselves in a friendlier
environment.  If extropianism is one such strategy, and if it becomes
dominant, might it create fruitful conditions for other strategies to
suddenly multiply?

I believe this is a possibility.  Extropians, as described, do not
believe in absolute ethical codes.  Absolute ethical codes, however,
are very good indeed at spreading; they are contagious memes.  We see
in today's world an increasing number of meme systems which believe
they offer the best, correct answer: the religious right in this
country, the Greens in Europe, the fundamentalist governments in the
middle east.  In a world in which there seem to be no absolutes, many
will (and do) find ready-made absolutes attractive.

It is entirely possible that the ESS of the future will be some
proportion of extropians balanced by some proportion of absolutists.
This would certainly be the historical precedent.  What is really
interesting, though, is the possibility that extropianism, by virtue
of its emphasis on ethical diversity within its framework, will
subvert this process.  Absolutists can be absolute--within their own
domain.  And we leave the rest to evolution.

Is this "limited absolutism" a contradiction in terms?  Quite
possibly.  But in an open, diverse, extropian world, where absolute
realities are a dime a dozen, it may well turn out to be a truly new
kind of (meta?) ESS.

Rob Jellinghaus (robertj@Autodesk.COM)

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 13 Jun 92 17:20:50 PDT
From: uunet!ghsvax!hal (Hal Finney)
To: Extropians@gnu.ai.mit.edu
Subject: Ethics, Extropianism, and ESSs

Rob Jellinghaus has offered a typically challenging perspective on
Extropian ethics.  I have one quibble with his claim that it will in
general be in the long term interest of each individual to behave in
accordance with the dominant ethical memes of his society.  While this
will be largely true, it depends on what those memes actually are.  If
they are stupid ideas which don't match human nature ("from each
according to his ability, to each according to his needs") then it may
be to an individual's advantage to ignore those memes.

I remember reading an essay by science fiction writer David Brin a few
years ago in which he made a point similar to what Rob said later in
his message.  Western culture, Brin said, is characterized by tolerance
of other cultural views.  This is one of the reasons for the success
of the United States in bringing together people from many different
cultures.

But there's a paradox here.  If Western culture prizes tolerance, and
most cultures are intolerant (let's suppose that's true for the sake
of the argument), then what should Western attitudes be towards other
cultures?  On the one hand, since the West is tolerant, it should
tolerate other cultures.  On the other hand, since the West prizes
tolerance, it should oppose other cultures which do not.

As Rob points out, Extropianism faces the same problem, and in fact we
see that here on the list.  Someone advocates religion, or says that
they think people should give to charity.  Do we say, that's fine,
there's room for all kinds of views in an Extropian society?  Or do we
say, no, you're wrong in thinking that there is only one right way to
do things, and we're going to oppose that way of thinking?  I think
in practice many people take the first view but don't post, while the
no-you're-wrong'ers fill the list with arguments.

Rob paints a picture of an Extropian society with a substantial
minority of people who have intolerant views, and who do their best to
spread those views throughout the society.  Presumably they don't use
coercion, although perhaps there are even enclaves (call them
"states") where coercion is used on those unfortunate enough to be
spawned there.  Would most Extropians stand by and let this coercion
go on, or would they take action to stop this betrayal of their
treasured principles of non-coercive action?

We are damned if we do and damned if we don't; either we tolerate
intolerance, or we fight it, betraying our own principles of
tolerance.

Perhaps we need something like Star Trek's "Prime Directive", an
ethical principal forbidding interference in other people's business,
even when those other people are behaving badly by our lights.  We
should have faith in our beliefs; we believe that an ethical principal
of tolerance and non-coercion is, in the long run, beneficial to those
who follow it.  People must find this out for themselves, and by
letting them make the mistakes of disobeying these principals we will
hasten the day when they see the error of their ways and adopt more
tolerant views.

(Tieing this in to an earlier thread, this explains why we don't see
aliens; they are forbidden to interfere with our culture by powerful
and sophisticated ethical arguments that are distant descendants of
our own extropian views.  This is an old argument, of course.)

Here I am assuming that our libertarian values really will lead to a
better life for those who hold them.  If this is true, then it makes
it doubly easy to be tolerant of others; first because we believe in
tolerance, and second because we believe that in the long run the
others, too, will learn that tolerance is a winning strategy.

Rob, OTOH, seemed to be taking a more relativist view of ethical
systems, where the only question was which system was dominant at any
given time and place.  I think it's important to recognize the fact
that some systems are going to win and others lose just because they
are or are not consistent with human nature.  This offers grounds for
a more absolutist approach to ethics.

Hal Finney
ghsvax!hal@uunet.uu.net				...!uunet!ghsvax!hal
Permission is granted to freely reproduce this message.

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 14 Jun 92 12:34:03 PDT
From: uunet!autodesk.com!robertj (Young Rob Jellinghaus)
To: Extropians@gnu.ai.mit.edu
Subject: Re:  Ethics, Extropianism, and ESSs

    From Hal Finney

    Rob Jellinghaus has offered a typically challenging perspective on
    Extropian ethics.  I have one quibble with his claim that it will in
    general be in the long term interest of each individual to behave in
    accordance with the dominant ethical memes of his society.  While this
    will be largely true, it depends on what those memes actually are.  If
    they are stupid ideas which don't match human nature ("from each
    according to his ability, to each according to his needs") then it may
    be to an individual's advantage to ignore those memes.

You omitted a small, but crucial, preface to my claim: I stated that
it is in the individual's best interest to follow the dominant memes
_if_ those memes collectively form an evolutionarily stable strategy.
Clearly, the memes of the former USSR did not... the society thus
constituted could not compete with societies based on other memes.

I liked your description of the "I'm only intolerant of intolerance"
dilemma:

    We are damned if we do and damned if we don't; either we tolerate
    intolerance, or we fight it, betraying our own principles of
    tolerance.

But here I thought that this was the whole point of polycentric law:
to be able to evolve independent ethical and legal structures which
could have any desired form, where "desired" is defined by the people
who wish to live according to that body of law.  Would it not be the
case that intolerant statist legal systems could exist perfectly well
within a polycentric model?  I suppose it's time to buckle down and
order some back issues of Extropy.

If I'm correct in my assumption, then the problem (from the extropian
point of view) is solved: we grant to people the right to live
intolerantly, as long as they do not interfere with people living
under other legal systems.

Of course, the dilemma is only exacerbated from the absolutists'
viewpoint.  The absolutists, by definition, wish to return _everyone_
to a single model of belief.  Consider the fundamentalists, who wish
everyone to live according to the bible, or the back-to-the-landers
who want everyone to live as primitive cultures did.  Both of these
are essentially premodern modes of existence:  there _is_ only one
reality, no questions asked.  But Walter Anderson (in my fave book
_Reality Isn't What It Used To Be_) does a nice job of summing up the
problem in attempting to recreate premodernism:

    We are in a world of many cultures, and in such a world
    any identity--including that of "natural" peoples--involves
    choice and creation.  Many choices can be made, but they are
    all choices.  And--this may be the hardest lesson for pro-
    tectors of "indigenous peoples" to learn--you do not choose
    to be premodern.  If you choose, you are at least modern.
    If you know you are choosing, you are postmodern.

The absolutists are hence bound for trouble if they sincerely think
they can bring the world under the spell of a single set of contagious
memes.  What interests me is whether polycentric law can provide a
structure whereby they can be as absolutist as they can within their
own properly defined domain.

    We should have faith in our beliefs; we believe that an ethical principle
    of tolerance and non-coercion is, in the long run, beneficial to those
    who follow it.  People must find this out for themselves, and by
    letting them make the mistakes of disobeying these principals we will
    hasten the day when they see the error of their ways and adopt more
    tolerant views.

This is what I meant when I said we could "leave the rest up to evo-
lution".  A side note: it intrigues me how we extropians understand
the fallacy of ascribing motives or outcomes to "evolution" as though
evolution was something sentient, yet we take pleasure in mottos like
"Forward, onward, upward!", which clearly posit a dynamic of absolute
progress through evolution.  (See the end of this post for another
example of this fallacy in action.)

    I think it's important to recognize the fact
    that some systems are going to win and others lose just because they
    are or are not consistent with human nature.  This offers grounds for
    a more absolutist approach to ethics.

Sorry, Hal, but I have to BZZZT you on this one.  What is "human
nature"?  What are "humans"?  Not only are our ethics continually in
flux, swimming in an environment of competing ethical systems and
cultural values, but the very _definition_ of "human" is just as
flexible.  There is no absolute definition of "human nature"... it's
evolving along with everything else.

Contrast the ancient Greek view of humans as imperfect beings with the
rational capacity to grasp absolute truth through the use of their
minds only (no need for observation); the medieval European view of
humans as flawed, sinful creatures whose purpose is only to do the
will of God; and the extropian view of humans as individual beings
with free will and the ability to make rational and arational choices
about how they want to live, and even what reality structure they want
to participate in!

And who knows what "human" will mean a hundred years from now?

Certainly I do think that the last hundred years have let the cat out
of the bag... we humans now realize (at least some of us) that we
can choose our realities, and that our realities are evolving.  But
I see this as simply the latest step in our memetic evolution, rather
than a move towards a system more in accords with some Platonic ideal
of "human nature".  (The "forward onward upward" fallacy strikes
again!)

Rob Jellinghaus (robertj@Autodesk.COM)

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 15 Jun 92 13:02:41 PDT
From: uunet!usc.edu!more@nunki.usc.edu (Max More)
To: Extropians@gnu.ai.mit.edu
Subject: Re:  Ethics, Extropianism, and ESSs/Evolution fallacy

>
> I liked your description of the "I'm only intolerant of intolerance"
> dilemma:
>
>     We are damned if we do and damned if we don't; either we tolerate
>     intolerance, or we fight it, betraying our own principles of
>     tolerance.

I think this way of expressing the issue gives a misleading appearance of
paradox or inconsistency. "Tolerance" can mean many things. A libertarian
is tolerant in the sense that he or she wants to allow people to live
according to their own wishes, and this includes allowing them to voluntarily
live in an intolerant community. But a libertarian's tolerance is not
unlimited, since it's based on the non-initiation-of-coercion principle.
We need not tolerant one person violating the rights of another. Tolerance
is not, in itself, a libertarian principle. Only tolerance within the
boundaries of voluntarism is libertarian. The case of tolerance is similar to
that of free speech. It's true that libertarians support free speech, but it's
not true that we believe that anyone can say anything they want on someone
else's property.

>
> This is what I meant when I said we could "leave the rest up to evo-
> lution".  A side note: it intrigues me how we extropians understand
> the fallacy of ascribing motives or outcomes to "evolution" as though
> evolution was something sentient, yet we take pleasure in mottos like
> "Forward, onward, upward!", which clearly posit a dynamic of absolute
> progress through evolution.  (See the end of this post for another
> example of this fallacy in action.)

I think you are mistaken here. The motto "Forward, Upward, Outward" (which
encapsulates the principle of Boundless Expansion) does not partake of the
fallacy of ascribing motives to evolution. Certainly nothing in my writing on
the topic (In "Transhumanism: Towards a Futurist Philosophy" in Extropy #6,
or The Extropian Principles - revised version in #9) suggests that evolution
has any "absolute progress", if by that you mean an *intrinsic* progressive
direction.

The progression of evolution is clearly something that *we* conscious, extropic
persons ascribe to "it". From our adopted extropian perspective, the
evolution of intelligence is a good thing. But from the point of view of
the natural world apart from us, it is neither good nor bad. The motto
"Forward, Upward, Outward" expresses *our* desire to continue and accelerate
the development of intelligence, information, opportunity, etc. It says
nothing about any intrinsic value to what we regard as progress.
>
> Certainly I do think that the last hundred years have let the cat out
> of the bag... we humans now realize (at least some of us) that we
> can choose our realities, and that our realities are evolving.  But
> I see this as simply the latest step in our memetic evolution, rather
> than a move towards a system more in accords with some Platonic ideal
> of "human nature".  (The "forward onward upward" fallacy strikes
> again!)

It is not part of the Extropian philosophy to say that we are evolving toward
some Platonic ideal. There are no Platonic ideals. We choose the direction
in which we develop, or the *directions* (since we may choose differing forms,
as in Bruce Sterling's Shapers and Mechanists in Schizmatrix). One of the ideas
expressed in the principle of Boundless Expansion is that the process of
improvement (as we see it) is endless. There is no Platonic ideal to be
reached. We may have a ideal image of who we want to become, individually or
as a species, but that ideal image is continually changing and developing .
As we learn more, we form new and more advanced conceptions of what
will be possible to us in the future.

Max More		more@usc.edu		AMIX:MMORE
Executive Director
Extropy Institute (ExI)

------------------------------

End of Hal's Extropians Digest Volume 92 Issue #0007
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