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U.S. Soldiers Recipients of Newest Prosthetic Technologies
plaastik writes "The next generation of naturalistic and touch-sensitive artificial limbs are being worn by U.S. Soldiers. Instead of the old velcro strap and cup these new models are fused directly to the bone and are controlled by controlled by the wearer's brain. From the article: 'Future prosthetic arms will fuse to existing bone, eliminating the need for awkward attachment systems. These more naturalistic limbs will use bionic nerves attached to natural nerves to send and receive signals from the brain. Chips embedded in the user's brain will help command artificial-muscle-activated, touch-sensitive, fully articulating hands.'"
I'm thinking these soldiers won't be playing the piano anytime soon.
Sadly, nothing sparks innovation and technology like war and disasters.
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
When does someone stop being human [...] What of the soul?
Perhaps you can first provide a concrete, evidence-based definition of what a soul is, then we can have an intelligent discussion about whatever it is.
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See Plato's Phaedo, a text anyone with a university education should already be familiar with. All metaphysical investigations are not "evidence-based" in the sense that they are subjectable to the scientific method, but they are still "reasonable", perhaps even "logical".
There is a very funny, insightful, and interesting (and informative too) short SciFi story by Stanislaw Lem on this subject. In it the protagonist (?) — a racing car driver, or something like this — is being sued by the protheses-makers to return the parts, because he defaulted on the payments...
Lem wrote it in Polish, and I read it in Russian, but there is, no doubt a translation available for your preferred language. Look for it. Lem is one of the greatest SciFi authors... Whatever you find (almost) will be worth reading.
Now, in the story even half of the guy's brain is artificial (and has a slight defect, causing him to count everything he sees), which really does make the question asked by the parent meaningful. But we are not there yet, and can not replace the brains, so the answer is rather obvious...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I wonder if proper body and vehicle armor is cheaper than prosthetics, multiple surgeries, psychological counseling, and a lifetime of subsequent health problems. I also wonder what these soldiers lost their limbs for. Iraq and Afghanistan aren't exactly basions of freedom, are they? Yes, they'll be peaceful one day in the future, as will the entire earth when the sun runs out of hydrogen. I do realize that every time a flower blooms in Iraq it's because of American resolve and committment, while none of the death and destruction is our fault, but still, one wonders what the hell it's all for.
Note to editors, keep your tenses consistent. The headline and abstract use both present and future tense, and without reading the article I can't tell whether these technologies are actually in use now, or will be in the future. It seems like just a few months ago that monkeys were controlling robotic arms with just their brainwaves, has technology advanced so quickly that we can now physically and neurologically integrate electronic machines with people? The article confuses that crucial point.
"U.S. Soldiers Recipients of Newest Prosthetic Technologies
The next generation of naturalistic and touch-sensitive artificial limbs are being worn by U.S. Soldiers. Instead of the old velcro strap and cup these new models are fused directly to the bone and are controlled by the wearer's brain. From the article: 'Future prosthetic arms will fuse to existing bone, eliminating the need for awkward attachment systems. These more naturalistic limbs will use bionic nerves attached to natural nerves to send and receive signals from the brain. Chips embedded in the user's brain will help command artificial-muscle-activated, touch-sensitive, fully articulating hands.'"
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
What is this fixation that the approximately one-third of Americans who still support Bush have about killing the other two thirds?
You're already killing people all over the world. If you want to kill Americans, why not start with yourselves?
Here's a serious question for idiot leftist /.'ers whose hatred of America and it's current government matches that of idiot right wingers hatred of Islam and yourself:
What are you leftist /.'ers actually doing, apart from complaining and bitching, to make things better?
Seriously, left-leaning ideological /.'ers have turned this place into an anti-american soapbox that mirrors the intense hatred of sites like LGF and FreeRepublic, but I have yet to see any of you do anything about it. Where is the organisation for making things better? Where is the supposed open source community (you know, works in the open) spirit applied to political community?
All I see is bullshit statements like your own with little action.
This place is really beginning to stink.
Oh, and as the best scientific evidence shows no room for a physical soul of any weight, the soul cannot be said to exist anywhere physically. It is a spiritual object, and as a spiritual object it exists in all parts of the body and no part of the body, so long as the body can be controled by or in turn influence the will of the soul.
You're ignoring the much simpler explanation that it simply doesn't exist... which more than adequately explains the "no room for a physical soul of any weight [mass]".
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Gah! Dilemma!
On one hand, you're bringing religion into a discussion about technology. My initial urge is to stare at you blankly until you go away, or yell "keep your religion off of my science", or tell you that if you object you don't have to take part but you shouldn't tell other people how to live, blah blah etc etc. Most likely, I just wouldn't respond at all.
On the other hand, you correctly used "raises the question" instead of incorrectly using "begs the question", for which I want to applaud.
What to do, what to do....
Anyway, your statements were:
When does someone stop being human, once we can replace their body with a machine?
There is an old thought experiment that goes something like this:
"If you could replace a single neuron with a device that responds exactly the same way, would you be less than human? All input to that device is the same, all output is the same, for all the neurons around it, absolutely nothing has changed. Now, imagine that you start replacing every neuron, one by one. After each replacement, for the natural neurons around it, still nothing has changed. When you are finished, you have a functioning brain that continues to process all input exactly the same as before, only now it is mechanical instead of biological. Now is it less than human? If not, at which point did it change into something else?"
It's an interesting problem, and if you are as intelligent as you seem, you can ponder it out without me contaminating your process with my opinions.
Is it just the brain?
Yup. I hope that wasn't a surprise.
What of AI then?
It depends on what you mean when you think of the term "AI". Like so many other terms, it has partially lost its original meaning due to overuse. By the very definition, though, it is artificial. A computer program designed to fool humans is not true intelligence. A computer program that emulates probable human responses is not true intelligence. Ah, but what if, similar to the above thought experiment, we could somehow copy a person's neurological responses... and put that data into a program that would simulate a complete working brain, down to the last neuron. Would =that= be true intelligence? Hmm...
What of the soul?
What of it? If you believe in such things, good for you. However, there has never been any scientific evidence* that such a thing exists or exerts any force over my choices or actions. So, I'm comfortable living my day to day life without such worries. YMMV.
*For those that would respond "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" (which is a true statement), I would say "No, but it sure is an =indication= of absence." But as Carl Sagan said, "You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe"
Don't put advice in your sig.
The primary concern of course, in any bio-replacement scheme, is to make the naked robot chicks *totally* hot.
"In the Iraq War, up to 15,000 military combaants were killed in the face of up to 4,300 civilian noncombatant deaths. During the Desert Storm conflict, 20,000 Iraqi soldiers and 3,500 civilians were killed. 68% of the munitions used in this war were precision-guided, compared with 6.5 % in 1991. I think these statistics speak for themselves."
4300 non-combatant deaths in the Iraq war? Where in world did you get that number?! President Bush himself said (in a speech on December 12, 2005) that there were 30,000 non-combatant casualties; other, less medacious sources estimate the true number is between two and four times as much as *that* but even that ultra-lowball number from Bush himself is *7* times your 4,300 figure.
Before correcting your numbers, you might also note that these two wars were utterly, utterly different. The Gulf War took weeks; the Iraq was is taking years. The Gulf War was a conventional war where two armies squared off against each other; the Iraq War has nearly entirely been a form of urban guerilla warfare.
Finally, perhaps you have forgotten, but the Iraqi people aren't supposed to be the enemy in this "war", at least so claims Bush. Carpet bombing innocent civilians who have done nothing to you is no way to win their hearts and minds.
Face it, everyone in the world warned the crazy murderous Republicans that invading Iraq would end up being a terrible mistake -- and it turned out to be a worse bloodbath than even our darkest fears. To claim we should have *started* by committing mass murder of innocents makes it clear that you are not entirely a sane human being. I pity your family and intimates.