Domain: iscid.org
Stories and comments across the archive that link to iscid.org.
Comments · 10
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Artificial LifeArtificial Life is a relatively newer idea than just Artificial Intelligence. Artificial Intelligence is basically revolving around writing software that can mimic intelligence, although current techniques make that quite a difficult goal. Artificial Life sounds more like something you'd be interested in. As described by the ISCID:
Artificial Life does overlap with Artificial Intelligence but the two areas are very different in their approach and history. Artificial Life is concerned with specific life-oriented algorithms such as genetic algorithms which can mimic nature and its laws and therefore relates more to biology, whereas Artificial Intelligence tends to look at how human intelligence can be replicated, therefore relating more to psychology. ( http://www.iscid.org/encyclopedia/Artificial_Life)
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Artificial LifeArtificial Life is a relatively newer idea than just Artificial Intelligence. Artificial Intelligence is basically revolving around writing software that can mimic intelligence, although current techniques make that quite a difficult goal. Artificial Life sounds more like something you'd be interested in. As described by the ISCID:
Artificial Life does overlap with Artificial Intelligence but the two areas are very different in their approach and history. Artificial Life is concerned with specific life-oriented algorithms such as genetic algorithms which can mimic nature and its laws and therefore relates more to biology, whereas Artificial Intelligence tends to look at how human intelligence can be replicated, therefore relating more to psychology. ( http://www.iscid.org/encyclopedia/Artificial_Life)
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Re:Public Service Announcement
Stop opressing me, I can post where ever I wanna!
But seriously, using the estimate from wikipedia: "It is estimated that the print holdings of the Library of Congress would, if digitized and stored as plain text, constitute 17 to 20 terabytes of information", we can use google to calculate how many such chips would be required to store the US Library of Congress:
Enter into google: (20 terabytes) / (160 kilobytes) = 134 217 728
Now, with some reasearch into White Blood Cells, we learn that a normal human has between 7000 and 25,000 white blood cells in a drop of blood. So going with a conservative estimate of 10,000 white blood cells per a drop of blood, we could store the Library of Congress in
134 217 728 / 10 000 = 13 421.7728 drops of blood.That's not very accurate, let's try to get a better estimate. Wikipedia to the resque:
There are normally between 4×10^9 and 1.1×10^10 white blood cells in a litre of healthy adult blood.
Again, with a conservative estimate of 7 x 10^9 white blood cells per liter, we get
134 217 728 / (7 * (10^9)) = 0.0191739611Entering into google 0.0191739611 liter to centiliter, we get
0.0191739611 liter = 1.91739611 centiliterIn other words, storing the whole Library of Congress using these chips would take about half a shotglass of blood.
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Phase Change and ComplexityThe wiki page gives a general introduction to phase change. My limited exposure to phase change has come from trying to fathom the various ideas put forth under the banner of complexity. The Santa Fe Institute is the home base for Complexity Theory. A search on the Institutes site turns up a plethora of articles on phase change. One of the godfathers of complexity theory, Stuart Kauffman makes many references to the idea of phase change as it applies to his ideas of the origins of life and open, non-equilibrium systems. The International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design (ISCID) also puts up some interesting material.
The above gives an introduction to phase change as it is considered in terms of Complexity Theory. Approaching phase change through complexity theory, even for an outsider like myself, gives insight into how far reaching are the results of insight into phase change.
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Re:The only debate on Intelligent Design that is..This sad and inflammatory post is typical as to the supposed wisdom and scientific merits of many evolutionists. They think they are so smart but fail to show some humility. Saying that you've heard it all just doesn't add any substance to the debate. I suggest trying to respond to the following:
http://www.iscid.org/papers/Behe_ReplyToCritics_12 1201.pdfI'm personally convinced that people get so emotional because they don't know how to respond to the ID people and throw up language like this. As Behe nicely shows, the evolutionists do a very poor, if not dishonest job, in trying to address his claims.
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evolutionists have to do a better jobEssentially all the comments that I've read on
/. the past couple of days have indicated that ID has been completely debunked by science. However, this just isn't the case. People have been trying to do it but have been decidely put down by the ID people. A case in point is Behe's book "Darwin's Black Box." He pretty much demolishes critics in this reply.
http://www.iscid.org/papers/Behe_ReplyToCritics_12 1201.pdfPeople, let's not just assume that evolution has "won out." ID does have merits that evolutionists need to seriously contemplate, respond to, or allow there to be dialogue and both views taught in school.
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Programmers and IDWhat I don't understand is that this group of people (computer programmers) is so anti-intelligent design.
We design programs. I consider myself a decent programmer (though not a star programmer) but I can't for the life of me write programs without bugs. If I, an intelligent entity, can't do this, should I reason that I should use evolutionary programming instead, where I let the computer select among 500,000 randomly generated algorithms to see which ones work? And even if I took that approach, I'd still need to know what the purpose of the program was ahead of time in order to determine what the "best" solution was.
I hear a lot of people saying "ID is just creationism!" But it's not; to state that just demonstrates ignorance. Have you read Dembski's work? Have you read Cordova's takedown of Ellsberry's response?
Another argument I hear frequently is, "who designed the designer" (question is absurd; the designer is outside the design) and "well, the designer sure got a lot of things wrong" (ID does not posit the character of the designer).
If you're going to critique intelligent design, do it on the basis of the theories presented. Respond to the theories; don't respond by ignorant conjecture. If you don't know the definition of "complex specified information", you should probably learn it before posting anything about ID.
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I don't mind
Define Mind:
A cognitive system able to process unexpected situations.
By that definition, I don't have a mind. I can think of about 20 unexpected situations which I would not be able to process. I can think of a whole lot of actual situations that I am unable to process, understand or respond to rationally - starting with why the hell is Israel trying to solve its problems using "I've got a bigger stick than you" approach? I guess that's probably not what you meant? How do I cope with new and unexpected situations, sometimes I don't. Sometimes people don't cope. Will a logic based system ever be able to emulate an illogical and irrational, perhaps chemical, magnetic and electrical organic hybrid system?
The expert in this field David Chalmers seems to think it unlikely that a robot could ever think like a human. -
Forrest Mims Engineer's NotebookI noticed that the SAS Store sells "Forrest Mims Engineer's Notebook." I would like to highlight one little comment in the advertising blurb:
"His editorial exploits have included an assignment from the National Enquirer to evaluate the feasibility of eavesdropping on Howard Hughes by laser (it was possible, but Forrest declined to take part) and getting dropped by Scientific American as their 'The Amateur Scientist' columnist because he admitted to the magazine's editors that he was a born-again Christian."
The Forrest Mims Engineer's Notebook
I just want to point out that Mr. Mims wasn't dropped from "Scientific American" exactly because he is a born-again Christian. He was dropped because he is a Creationist. "Scientific American" is just one of the many bigoted publications that refuses to deal reasonably with the subject of Creationism. As a consequence of their firing Mr. Mims, I have refused to buy "Scientific American" for the last several years.
Another blurb on Forrest Mims from another site: ISCID: Forrest M. Mims III
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Some very clear counterpoints
For some clear, simple, lucid counterpoints to the Homeobox genes being the proof of punctuated equilibria, see this PDF or this updated paper.
For those too tired of this discussion to read the papers, print them and read them later. They're worth it, especially the PDF one.