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Why should input to this immense, self-organizing computer be any different than output? Read up on Sensory Substitution (or augmentation, or perceptual augmentation, or whatever you feel like calling it).

Just as you say, the brain would figure out how the arm worked if allowed to explore and test. The same thing is true about sensory information presented to the brain through the skin, as long as there is a correlation between the signals going out and the signals coming in. What's the reasoning behind thinking that dropping the wire from the skin to the brain and just "plugging it right in there" would make a difference? Be it the correlation between telling your body to turn, feedback from the inner ear and proprioception and feedback from the feelSpace belt, or the correlation between sending random signals to a prosthetic arm and observing what happens.. I'm pretty sure the brain would figure it out on it's own.

Judging by the examples, this brings the readability of Perl into graphs.

I think I can hear Edward Tufte weeping...

And the only chart they implement is the pie chart:

http://www.usf.uni-osnabrueck.de/~breiter/tools/pi echart/warning.en.html

Xix.

From the article it looks a lot like an ActivMedia Pioneer with a SICK laser which you can control through Player/Stage and includes all of the mapping algrothims, still have to do work to make it work however.

This looks like a fairly standard reasearch project for undergrad student, player/stage is littered with uni students asking questions about using these type of modules

I am not suprised by the lack of accuracy in the shown map, you normally get a lot of errors due to the robot not accurately figuring out where it is everytime it turns even slightly. Onboard odometry is never that good.

If you want something slightly more cutting edge, yet still old look at the mapping out of something like Kurt3D

NeXTSTEP/OpenSTEP never used XML. Stuff was kept in a defaults textfile database. They have carried over the name Property List over to OS X but its contents format has changed. http://www.vorlesungen.uni-osnabrueck.de/informati k/shellscript/Html/Man/_Man_NeXT_html/html5/Proper tyList.5.html

"My Documents" - yeah, that's secure...

Interesting. I went through the results and found a mystery (at least to me). Check out this My Documents folder, and click the 10 Q & A link. Watch what happens as you click the resulting links. What is going on here?

"Nature has evolved strategies to cope with dynamic, unpredictable environments,"

I am elated to finally find a paper that so clearly elucidates my position and observations. I am also saddened to realise that people who would benefit the most from it are also the least likely to read it and understand it.

3) That subjective experience either doesn't exist, or is unimportant because it is some sort of ambient or peripheral effect.

Item 3 in particular hit home; I have had the exact same conversation and thought process ("Perhaps the person I'm talking with doesn't have a subjective experience?"), for the last five years. The last time I had it was a few days ago while talking with a fellow engineer here at LithTech.

Subjective experience is not an easy problem; in fact, it is a very hard problem, but there is something in too many scientist's minds that makes them want to treat the subject as a superstitious topic, and treat those who find subjective experience difficult to fit within a computational framework as religious or spiritual zealots. Larson has correctly identified the currently popular model of the world, "Cybernetic Totalism."

By the way; Not understanding his paper is not something to be proud of. Ignorance about *anything* is not something to be proud of. Use a dictionary or a search engine, whatever it takes, and understand these words.