It seems likely that you're able and avid computer user, and I know that you've been involved with the production of software (Starship Titanic, for example). But your writing seems to imply some familiarity with computer science concepts beyond user level (Mostly Harmless, for example, has the feeling of being written while under the influence of LISP or some other functional language. Those birds were darn spooky if you ask me). Have you done much coding?
In Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, the character Richard MacDuff is obsessed with mapping natural processes into music. I really enjoyed this book; not only was it fun to read, it started me thinking about the relationship between math and music when I was a wee lad of 16 (and I still think it's the sort of thing that might be stimulating to young minds; I gave out the fictional essay "Music and Fractal Landscapes" to my high school students this last semester, and some of them took to the ideas. Some of them thought I was a jerk, though).
But my question is: are there any music composition software packages/languages/environments that you find interesting? Anything that Richard MacDuff would find fascinating?
OK, here's something I don't understand: How do you get your network settings right if you do this?
I've tried this with PicoBSD (fits on floppy--only gives you terminal access, but it's better than nothing) and want to try it with the QNX-on-a-floppy (has gui & browser!) . However, I shove the floppy in a random machine at a public library, and it boots and then, since I'm not very networking literate, I don't know how to set things like my IP and routing info. Advice?
About a year ago, I took a creativity class at school (yes, I know, someone will argue you can't teach creativity. Not the point of this post). One of our assignments was to develop a game -- any sort of game, board, puzzle, card, what have you. Our instructor claimed to have come up with several games himself, and sold them to companies such Mattel, Hasbro, Parker Brothers, etc.
Now, obviously, how much our games could be like other games was a big issue. It's hard to come up with something new, as most of the posts in this thread recognize. Apparently, the rule that has been agreed on in the industry at large (not necessarily computer games) is that your game must be "25%" different. How you figure what % of a game is alike and different is something beyond me, but our instructor informed us that court cases have been decided over this rule. It also explains the state of things to some extent; there are a lot of games that are somewhat alike, but maybe changed 1/4 (there are also complete knock-offs, but I don't think you find them so much in the market at large).
If this is all true (and I don't have any documentation or references, sorry), then I wonder how much of this might go over into the computer game industry...
Yet another reason to go "off-the-grid".... that is, decentralizing in yet another way.
Some time ago, reading one of those alternative-energy magazines, I read speculations that not only was the time coming when people could live "off-the-grid", but that it'd be quite an industry. I wasn't sure at the time, but when I think about this in the context of going off the grid being a decentralization, I can suddenly see a parallel between that idea and the Personal Computer revolution. And PCs have spawned quite an industry...
Just a thought. So, does anyone know anything about getting off the grid? And keeping an internet connection at the same time?:)
I feel the nostalgia welling in me as well. But there is no TI 99/4A in my closet (wait... no, actually there is, but the darn TV adaptor is missing). Perhaps there is an emulator out there that I could use? Maybe even dumps of my favorite games? (Parsec being cheifest among them, but I also spend hours glued to knockoffs such as Munchman and TI-Invaders).
I agree with the posts that have pointed out that O'Reilly hasn't put his money where his mouth is, yet. He's taken a stance which I respect, and done it in a way I respect, but he really hasn't made much of an economic move. I wish he would, and there's good arguments for doing so floating around this discussion.
What I'm curious about is why he doesn't seem to think others should put their money where their mouth is. In his letter to Jeff Bezos, he states "I agree with [Stallman's] message, although not his methods." This implies to me that he's against the idea of a boycott, and I can't figure out for the life of me why.
Finally, here's a possible application from out on the fringes. Suppose you are a Web-hosting provider and you want to give your clients as much flexibility as you can without jeopardizing your own systems' security. Instead of buying a huge farm of PCs, you buy one S/390 mainframe with lots of RAM and the VM operating system. Now each client company gets their own virtual Linux machine with full root privileges. They can start and stop their Web servers, upgrade software, test new code, or whatever, without risk to your infrastructure.
OK, all you entreprenuers, are you listening? I would LOVE to host in an environment like this, assuming it could be done for a price that's competitive with colocation/dedicated box services. From the numbers I saw in the article, it seems (at least as far as HW goes) you might be able to be very competitive indeed.
Call me when you want to beta-test. Or even sell.
Andrew Chaiken the vocal percussionist?
on
Full Moon
·
· Score: 2
There's a guy, and I think his name is Andrew Chaiken, who sings/spits with an a'cappella band named the House Jacks. He is able to produce some of the most phenomenal percussion sounds/licks with his vocal tract -- well beyond the average "beat box". Is this the same guy?
I realize that DVD is already somewhat established in the market.
But are there alternatives? The presence of an alternative that's not a pain for consumers could make a difference.
This is especially true as we get into audio. While movie studios will have control over the format that popular video content is distributed in, the costs of creating popular audio content are much smaller. Much fewer barriers to entry. This is why you see tons of small record labels, but not as many small film studios (though they do exist, and maybe there'll be more as technology improves)...
Anyway, if there were a DVD competitor, that'd be one way of attacking the problem.
I don't have moderator points right now, or I'd spend a good number of them on this thread. I think this discussion is exactly what needs to be held. So I guess I'll just post.
The point is brought up that a patent license could be used just like the GPL uses copyright. And that's true. And it may even be what to work for.
But there's two points to consider:
1) A patent is broader than copyright -- and getting broader (if one can patent things like build-to-order manufacturing and collecting data in a cookie). Thus, a patent on a widget might extend to ALL widgets that provide similar services. This has been brought up, but it's worth considering, because the point has synergy with my second point.
2) AFAIK, there's no currently accepted open patent license. And, in fact, there's no completely accepted open source license, either. The GPL is close, but even that one isn't universally embraced. But that's OK, because if you want to use someone else's code for the Whizzy Widget, hey, you do it by the license they released. If you don't, you can go write your own Whizzy Widget No problem. Release it under any license you want. HOWEVER, if Whizzy Widgets are patented under a license you find unacceptable, you're out of luck. Write your own, and you face patent infringement.
I think it may be possible to write a license that would get around such problems. But until there's a widely accepted (and recognized as enlightened and effective) open patent scheme, there's gonna be some serious clashes, and probable abuses.
One of the things I like about stories like this is that you get information on HOW TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. There's not just a mention of why you should be alarmed. There's not just a portent of trouble. There's an email address to someone you can contact if you're interested in actively working towards a solution.
Most of the mainstream media is really just entertainment. It's informational too, but hardly ever says anything about how you could be involved. Hence the term Infotainment (and I admit, it's a laughable term, and smacks of copywrighter syndrome, but I sort of like it). Possibly, it's as damaging as no news at all... in the same way as being continually exposed to calls for help from drowning people without doing anything about it might be.
(Except without the drowning people. I think I waxed a bit dramatic there.)
Anyway, I'd like to see more of the "how you can help" style. Probably won't come to USA Today or even CNN anytime soon, though. Thanks to Stallman and Slashdot saying something about it.
(Admirable how Bruce Perens encouraged people to donate to the EFF over on Technocrat.net, too. )
A team of scientists working on studying the interaction between tropical frogs on rain forest plants may have made an important unexpected discovery.
Dr. James Tertweiller, who has been living and working all over the state of Parana in Brazil for the last 3 years, said there's some indication that plants -- from the mighty, thick vegetation of our rainforests, down to your household cactus -- appear to be constantly converting carbon dioxide into oxygen.
"The implications are enormous," he said. "We've been so worried about the rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere. But if the plant life biomass of the planet is large enough -- and I think we might be able to acheive this in the forseeable future -- we can actually sustain a fine balance of atmospheric gases."
Policymakers around the world greeted this news with enthusiasm, but expressed some doubts about the economic viability of the plan.
>Read some Cognitive >Science if you want a better discussion of this >topic.
In point of fact, I have, and so I have a few comments on your response.
>Penrose is way out of his depth when he talks >about consciousness. Read some Cognitive >Science if you want a better discussion of this >topic.
In the literature I've encountered, it's my opinion that EVERYBODY is out of their depth when they talk about consciousness. One thing I like about Penrose is that he actually seems to admit this to some degree.
I do think that Cognitive Psychology has some theories that are better grounded in experimental effort. But I've yet to run into any truly general theory of consciousness (or even cognition) where I've even seen a well-designed experiment.
Penrose's theories are also at this stage of development. He's almost talking on a cosmological level, which one might expect, given his background as a theoretical physicist.
>This is from Steve Pinkers "How the Mind Works"-
>>Penrose's,mathematical argument has been >> dismissed as fallacious by logicians...
Penrose has also dismissed his dismissals. Does that make them fallacious?
Actually, he's done a bit more than that. He has been providing an ongoing logical dialog where he responds to objections to his theories. Dismissing Penrose out of hand as a logical lightweight is a mistake; he is clearly an accomplished mathemetician and physicist.It may be that he will turn out to be wrong, but it seems the dialog is far from over, and any dismissal is too early.
>>computational theory [of consciousness] fits so >>well into our understanding of the world >>that, in trying to overthrow it, Penrose had to >>reject most of contemporary neuroscience, >>evolutionary biology, and physics > Nobody in Cog Sci agrees with Penrose.
Relativity. Quantum Mechanics. No more rejections of classical physics than I think Penrose is proposing for current science with his work. Of course, there have been other paradigm changing theories that have turned out to be completely wrong. Perhaps his will go down this way.
Still, disagreement with generally held theory doesn't make something wrong.
Have you actually read Penrose's work?
(and with that annoying challenge, I'll offer humbly to go read the Pinker book, which, I admit, I haven't read)
I tend to agree with the thinking of Roger Penrose as put forth in his book "Shadows of the Mind". His position is basically that a computational description or simulation of consciousness is Impossible. He derives his results from Godel spends about half the book doing this) and then goes looking for non-computational physics. Hmmmm.
I have no doubt that many in this forum will disagree. After reading "Godel, Escher, Bach" it's my understanding that Douglas Hofstader disagrees. I find Penrose's arguments convincing; however, I don't think I'd undertake to defend them myself. Read the book (Shadows of the Mind) and then decide for yourself. It's at LEAST as interesting as GSB; even if you don't agree, you should enjoy it.
Yeah, Penrose sure had to dig deep to try to concoct an argument to back up his beliefs. Too bad that his arguments are based on his own horseshit theories of how the mind works, and ignore the known facts.
So try refuting the argument rather than calling it names. Unless you're shoveling horseshit yourself.
OK, slashdot isn't the place for an in depth treatment. But at least cite something. What you're doing is no more than name calling.
Hint: Next time you want to learn about how the mind works, or what it's capable of, try reading a book by a top neurologist rather than a top mathematician.
You apparently fail to note that any neurologist who suggests computational models for the workings of the brain has immediately brought the subject within the domain of those who study computation -- among which are mathematicians. And, as stated above, Penrose is a first rate mathemetician (and physicist to boot). It's real arrogance, then, to dismiss him from an argument where you've tried to show the computational sciences have relevance, regardless of how much anyone else may know about the biology of brains.
Furthermore, never underestimate how much such smart people can learn about any field outside their focus -- witness Feynman's contributions in biology (though many people would argue Feynman was a freak of nature).
Penrose's central theme is that computers are deterministic and that the human brain is not. My angle is that any sufficiently complex deterministic system can appear non-deterministic (hey, that's Chaos Theory) -- and anyway, even if that's not the case, you could easily hook up a random noise source to an A/D convertor and have your computer AI grab input from that for its "free
will".
It's true that Penrose's attempts to refute this possibility are the weakest of all of part 1 of the ENM.. so weak that I don't remember them.
I say, if it can be done in wetware, it can be done in software
Assuming that:
1) all physical phenomena occuring in wetware phenomenon are simulatable in software. Quite a statement; depends on what you mean by software, and most definitions of code-based software makes this assertion an echo of the formalists. This is one of the reason's why Goedel's theorem is a strong argument against hard AI.
2) simulation of all physical actions is equivalent to the action itself and is enough to bring about any phenomenon associated with the simulation. This seems roughly equivalent to voodoo to me.
to deny this is to invoke the supernatural, to say the Soul is seperate from the physical brain, and that's something I personally can't agree with.
Penrose very specifically stresses that he is not a mystic; he creates a distinction between the mystics/non-materialists and his idea of non-computational phenomenon.
Now, he places some things outside of our current understanding. For some reason, a lot of people seem to think this is the same thing. Penrose does leave room for the idea that we'll come to greater understanding and points what he thinks is the way. He has not erected an incomprehensible mystery as an explanation -- and in the few places where he proposes limits on what we can possibly know, his restrictions aren't any tighter than the well accepted ones presented by Heisenberg and Goedel.
See Roger Penrose's book on the subject The Emperor's New Mind wherein he uses rather a lot of words to explain why he believes hard AI is not possible. It's an opinion I personally don't agree with (and as an earnest teenager I was delighted to be able to read a book by such a well respected academic, and find myself capable of actually disagreeing with it!).
While being able to read critically is a sign of intelligence, and disagreeing is not wrong (many good new scientific roads start there), there's also a tendency for the intelligent to be inordinately proud. I am not convinced that Penrose is spot on with everything he's presented, but he's no more sloppy than anyone else in the field, and a good deal less than many. Additionally, he's demonstrated with many of his achievements in Mathematics and Physics that he really is quite bright himself, and capable of groundbreaking work. Being able to disagree with him is good, but dismissing him (or anyone similarly qualified) with a superficial treatment of his arguments is not a sign of intelligence.
In short, be wary of disagreeing with someone that smart, as smart as you may be.
Sorry, Mr. Penrose. Yelling "tubules" and "quantum" over and over again in Emperor's New Mind doesn't refute hard AI. It just means that the CPU in the deterministic Turing machine may need an embedded random-number generator based on a random physical process.
I think you misunderstand Penrose if you believe that he presents his model of quantum operations in microtubules of the brain as a "refutation" of hard AI. That stuff, presented in part 2 of ENM, is a suggested model put forth by Penrose *after* his attempt to refute hard AI in part 1. The model is not part of the attempt to refute hard AI; confusing that confuses the issue.
Now, you're welcome, as many intelligent people have, to dispute the arguments he presents in part one. But as near as I can tell, his arguments are as solid as those from the hard AI camp.
There is no intellectually honest reason to invoke wierd physics to explain the operations of the human brain.
Because, you know, everything the human brain is so well expained by science.:|
On the contrary, there are some good reasons to invoke weird physics, and Penrose spends the first half of the book laying out some convincing arguments. Yes, I realize that there are counter arguments to his. Not watertight, though. The dialogue between the two camps is still going on; if you look, you'll find Penrose's critics publishing their responses to him, and his re-responses. They're developing their theories and arguments. Penrose is about as intellectually dishonest as the hard AI camp.
Furthermore, the physics Penrose refers to really isn't so weird, at least, not any more than most other 20th century theories. The phenomenon that he speculates on in the emporer's new mind would have been examined anyway -- are being examined, in fact, due to the weirdness encountered when you link the quantum and classical world. There's conflicts to be resolved in the world of physics, and weirdness galore. The only thing that Penrose did that was beyond the ordinary weirdness was to suggest that these types of phenomenon are connected with the phenomenon of consciousness.
--
Where to find "text fingerprint" analysis tools?
on
Author Unknown
·
· Score: 2
I'm interested in learning more about how to do this analysis. Is there freely available software out there to do these sorts of things? Published papers/algorithms?
I'm interested in resources (print, online, organization, whatever) that can teach me how to engineer a station starting from Ohm's Law (OK, I also have a Math Degree and a soldering iron). Any recommendations?
Sometimes I think the best way to get rid of porn w/o infringing on free speech rights would be to make it illegal to charge for or otherwise profit from it.
There. No speech infringment -- people could talk about whatever they wanted, and still even produce the stuff -- but those who wanted to profit from this exploitation would miss out (or really, probably just go underground...). Of course, those of you that wanted to be exploited (yes, I'm talking about viewers of porn as well as those featured in it) would still lose out, unless it was produced for the hell of it by some people... as I suppose it is.
Slashdot Mirror
It seems likely that you're able and avid computer user, and I know that you've been involved with the production of software (Starship Titanic, for example). But your writing seems to imply some familiarity with computer science concepts beyond user level (Mostly Harmless, for example, has the feeling of being written while under the influence of LISP or some other functional language. Those birds were darn spooky if you ask me). Have you done much coding?
But my question is: are there any music composition software packages/languages/environments that you find interesting? Anything that Richard MacDuff would find fascinating?
OK, here's something I don't understand: How do you get your network settings right if you do this?
I've tried this with PicoBSD (fits on floppy--only gives you terminal access, but it's better than nothing) and want to try it with the QNX-on-a-floppy (has gui & browser!) . However, I shove the floppy in a random machine at a public library, and it boots and then, since I'm not very networking literate, I don't know how to set things like my IP and routing info. Advice?
About a year ago, I took a creativity class at school (yes, I know, someone will argue you can't teach creativity. Not the point of this post). One of our assignments was to develop a game -- any sort of game, board, puzzle, card, what have you. Our instructor claimed to have come up with several games himself, and sold them to companies such Mattel, Hasbro, Parker Brothers, etc.
Now, obviously, how much our games could be like other games was a big issue. It's hard to come up with something new, as most of the posts in this thread recognize. Apparently, the rule that has been agreed on in the industry at large (not necessarily computer games) is that your game must be "25%" different. How you figure what % of a game is alike and different is something beyond me, but our instructor informed us that court cases have been decided over this rule. It also explains the state of things to some extent; there are a lot of games that are somewhat alike, but maybe changed 1/4 (there are also complete knock-offs, but I don't think you find them so much in the market at large).
If this is all true (and I don't have any documentation or references, sorry), then I wonder how much of this might go over into the computer game industry...
If it were up to you, what remedy would you impose on Microsoft?
Yet another reason to go "off-the-grid".... that is, decentralizing in yet another way.
:)
Some time ago, reading one of those alternative-energy magazines, I read speculations that not only was the time coming when people could live "off-the-grid", but that it'd be quite an industry. I wasn't sure at the time, but when I think about this in the context of going off the grid being a decentralization, I can suddenly see a parallel between that idea and the Personal Computer revolution. And PCs have spawned quite an industry...
Just a thought. So, does anyone know anything about getting off the grid?
And keeping an internet connection at the same time?
I feel the nostalgia welling in me as well. But there is no TI 99/4A in my closet (wait... no, actually there is, but the darn TV adaptor is missing). Perhaps there is an emulator out there that I could use? Maybe even dumps of my favorite games? (Parsec being cheifest among them, but I also spend hours glued to knockoffs such as Munchman and TI-Invaders).
I agree with the posts that have pointed out that O'Reilly hasn't put his money where his mouth is, yet. He's taken a stance which I respect, and done it in a way I respect, but he really hasn't made much of an economic move. I wish he would, and there's good arguments for doing so floating around this discussion.
What I'm curious about is why he doesn't seem to think others should put their money where their mouth is. In his letter to Jeff Bezos, he states "I agree with [Stallman's] message, although not his methods." This implies to me that he's against the idea of a boycott, and I can't figure out for the life of me why.
Could you elaborate, Tim?
OK, all you entreprenuers, are you listening? I would LOVE to host in an environment like this,
assuming it could be done for a price that's competitive with colocation/dedicated box services. From the numbers I saw in the article, it seems (at least as far as HW goes) you might be able to be very competitive indeed.
Call me when you want to beta-test. Or even sell.
There's a guy, and I think his name is Andrew
Chaiken, who sings/spits with an a'cappella
band named the House Jacks. He is able to
produce some of the most phenomenal percussion
sounds/licks with his vocal tract -- well beyond
the average "beat box". Is this the same guy?
I realize that DVD is already somewhat
established in the market.
But are there alternatives? The presence of
an alternative that's not a pain for consumers
could make a difference.
This is especially true as we get into audio. While movie studios will have control over the format that popular video content is distributed in, the costs of creating popular audio content
are much smaller. Much fewer barriers to entry.
This is why you see tons of small record labels, but not as many small film studios (though they do exist, and maybe there'll be more as technology improves)...
Anyway, if there were a DVD competitor, that'd be one way of attacking the problem.
I don't have moderator points right now, or I'd spend a good number of them on this thread. I think this discussion is exactly what needs to be held. So I guess I'll just post.
The point is brought up that a patent license could be used just like the GPL uses copyright. And that's true. And it may even be what to work for.
But there's two points to consider:
1) A patent is broader than copyright -- and getting broader (if one can patent things like
build-to-order manufacturing and collecting data in a cookie). Thus, a patent on a widget might extend to ALL widgets that provide similar services. This has been brought up, but it's worth considering, because the point has synergy with my second point.
2) AFAIK, there's no currently accepted open patent license. And, in fact, there's no completely accepted open source license, either. The GPL is close, but even that one isn't universally embraced. But that's OK, because if you want to use someone else's code for the Whizzy Widget, hey, you do it by the license they released. If you don't, you can go write your own Whizzy Widget No problem. Release it under any license you want. HOWEVER, if Whizzy Widgets are patented under a license you find unacceptable, you're out of luck. Write your own, and you face patent infringement.
I think it may be possible to write a license that would get around such problems. But until there's a widely accepted (and recognized as enlightened and effective) open patent scheme, there's gonna be some serious clashes, and probable abuses.
Weston
Wish I saw more of that on Slashdot; the above posts have dramatically increased my faith that perhaps I will see more of it...
Thanks, guys.
How about Quincy?
(Bill Amend might take exception, but then again,
maybe he'd be honored...)
One of the things I like about stories like this is that you get information on HOW TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. There's not just a mention of why you should be alarmed. There's not just a portent of trouble. There's an email address to someone you can contact if you're interested in actively working towards a solution.
Most of the mainstream media is really just entertainment. It's informational too, but hardly ever says anything about how you could be involved. Hence the term Infotainment (and I admit, it's a laughable term, and smacks of copywrighter syndrome, but I sort of like it). Possibly, it's as damaging as no news at all... in the same way as being continually exposed to calls for help from drowning people without doing anything about it might be.
(Except without the drowning people. I think I waxed a bit dramatic there.)
Anyway, I'd like to see more of the "how you can help" style. Probably won't come to USA Today or even CNN anytime soon, though. Thanks to Stallman and Slashdot saying something about it.
(Admirable how Bruce Perens encouraged people to donate to the EFF over on Technocrat.net, too. )
AP, Curitiba, Brazil
A team of scientists working on studying the interaction between tropical frogs on rain forest plants may have made an important unexpected discovery.
Dr. James Tertweiller, who has been living and working all over the state of Parana in Brazil for the last 3 years, said there's some indication that plants -- from the mighty, thick vegetation of our rainforests, down to your household cactus -- appear to be constantly converting carbon dioxide into oxygen.
"The implications are enormous," he said. "We've been so worried about the rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere. But if the plant life biomass of the planet is large enough -- and I think we might be able to acheive this in the forseeable future -- we can actually sustain a fine balance of atmospheric gases."
Policymakers around the world greeted this news with enthusiasm, but expressed some doubts about the economic viability of the plan.
>Read some Cognitive
,mathematical argument has been
>Science if you want a better discussion of this >topic.
In point of fact, I have, and so I have a few comments on your response.
>Penrose is way out of his depth when he talks >about consciousness. Read some Cognitive
>Science if you want a better discussion of this >topic.
In the literature I've encountered, it's my opinion that EVERYBODY is out of their depth when they talk about consciousness. One thing I like about Penrose is that he actually seems to
admit this to some degree.
I do think that Cognitive Psychology has some theories that are better grounded in experimental effort. But I've yet to run into any truly general theory of consciousness (or even cognition) where I've even seen a well-designed experiment.
Penrose's theories are also at this stage of development. He's almost talking on a cosmological level, which one might expect, given his background as a theoretical physicist.
>This is from Steve Pinkers "How the Mind Works"-
>>Penrose's
>> dismissed as fallacious by logicians...
Penrose has also dismissed his dismissals. Does that make them fallacious?
Actually, he's done a bit more than that. He has been providing an ongoing logical dialog where he responds to objections to his theories. Dismissing Penrose out of hand as a logical lightweight is a mistake; he is clearly an accomplished mathemetician and physicist.It may be that he will turn out to be wrong, but it seems the dialog is far from over, and any dismissal is too early.
>>computational theory [of consciousness] fits so
>>well into our understanding of the world
>>that, in trying to overthrow it, Penrose had to
>>reject most of contemporary neuroscience,
>>evolutionary biology, and physics
> Nobody in Cog Sci agrees with Penrose.
Relativity. Quantum Mechanics. No more rejections of classical physics than I think Penrose is proposing for current science with his work. Of course, there have been other paradigm changing theories that have turned out to be completely wrong. Perhaps his will go down this way.
Still, disagreement with generally held theory doesn't make something wrong.
Have you actually read Penrose's work?
(and with that annoying challenge, I'll offer humbly to go read the Pinker book, which, I admit, I haven't read)
I tend to agree with the thinking of Roger Penrose as put forth in his book "Shadows of the Mind". His position is basically that a computational description or simulation of consciousness is Impossible. He derives his results from Godel spends about half the book doing this) and then goes looking for non-computational physics. Hmmmm.
I have no doubt that many in this forum will disagree. After reading "Godel, Escher, Bach" it's my understanding that Douglas Hofstader disagrees. I find Penrose's arguments convincing; however, I don't think I'd undertake to defend them myself. Read the book (Shadows of the Mind) and then decide for yourself. It's at LEAST as interesting as GSB; even if you don't agree, you should enjoy it.
Yeah, Penrose sure had to dig deep to try to concoct an argument to back up his beliefs. Too bad that his arguments are based on his own horseshit theories of how the mind works, and ignore the known facts.
So try refuting the argument rather than calling it names. Unless you're shoveling horseshit yourself.
OK, slashdot isn't the place for an in depth treatment. But at least cite something. What you're doing is no more than name calling.
Hint: Next time you want to learn about how the mind works, or what it's capable of, try reading a book by a top neurologist rather than a top mathematician.
You apparently fail to note that any neurologist who suggests computational models for the workings of the brain has immediately brought the subject within the domain of those who study computation -- among which are mathematicians. And, as stated above, Penrose is a first rate mathemetician (and physicist to boot). It's real arrogance, then, to dismiss him from an argument where you've tried to show the computational sciences have relevance, regardless of how much anyone else may know about the biology of brains.
Furthermore, never underestimate how much such smart people can learn about any field outside their focus -- witness Feynman's contributions in biology (though many people would argue Feynman was a freak of nature).
--
Penrose's central theme is that computers are deterministic and that the human brain is not. My angle is that any sufficiently complex deterministic system can appear non-deterministic (hey, that's Chaos Theory) -- and anyway, even if that's not the case, you could easily hook up a random noise source to an A/D convertor and have your computer AI grab input from that for its "free
will".
It's true that Penrose's attempts to refute this possibility are the weakest of all of part 1 of the ENM.. so weak that I don't remember them.
I say, if it can be done in wetware, it can be done in software
Assuming that:
1) all physical phenomena occuring in wetware phenomenon are simulatable in software. Quite a statement; depends on what you mean by software, and most definitions of code-based software makes this assertion an echo of the formalists. This is one of the reason's why Goedel's theorem is a strong argument against hard AI.
2) simulation of all physical actions is equivalent to the action itself and is enough to bring about any phenomenon associated with the simulation. This seems roughly equivalent to voodoo to me.
to deny this is to invoke the supernatural, to say the Soul is seperate from the physical brain, and that's something I personally can't agree with.
Penrose very specifically stresses that he is not a mystic; he creates a distinction between the mystics/non-materialists and his idea of non-computational phenomenon.
Now, he places some things outside of our current understanding. For some reason, a lot of people seem to think this is the same thing. Penrose does leave room for the idea that we'll come to greater understanding and points what he thinks is the way. He has not erected an incomprehensible mystery as an explanation -- and in the few places where he proposes limits on what we can possibly know, his restrictions aren't any tighter than the well accepted ones presented by Heisenberg and Goedel.
See Roger Penrose's book on the subject The Emperor's New Mind wherein he uses rather a lot of words to explain why he believes hard AI is not possible. It's an opinion I personally don't agree with (and as an earnest teenager I was delighted to be able to read a book by such a well respected academic, and find myself capable of actually disagreeing with it!).
While being able to read critically is a sign of intelligence, and disagreeing is not wrong (many good new scientific roads start there), there's also a tendency for the intelligent to be inordinately proud. I am not convinced that Penrose is spot on with everything he's presented, but he's no more sloppy than anyone else in the field, and a good deal less than many. Additionally, he's demonstrated with many of his achievements in Mathematics and Physics that he really is quite bright himself, and capable of groundbreaking work. Being able to disagree with him is good, but dismissing him (or anyone similarly qualified) with a superficial treatment of his arguments is not a sign of intelligence.
In short, be wary of disagreeing with someone that smart, as smart as you may be.
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Sorry, Mr. Penrose. Yelling "tubules" and "quantum" over and over again in Emperor's New Mind doesn't refute hard AI. It just means that the CPU in the deterministic Turing machine may need an embedded random-number generator based on a random physical process.
I think you misunderstand Penrose if you believe that he presents his model of quantum operations in microtubules of the brain as a "refutation" of hard AI. That stuff, presented in part 2 of ENM, is a suggested model put forth by Penrose *after* his attempt to refute hard AI in part 1. The model is not part of the attempt to refute hard AI; confusing that confuses the issue.
Now, you're welcome, as many intelligent people have, to dispute the arguments he presents in part one. But as near as I can tell, his arguments are as solid as those from the hard AI camp.
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There is no intellectually honest reason to invoke wierd physics to explain the operations of the human brain.
:|
Because, you know, everything the human brain is so well expained by science.
On the contrary, there are some good reasons to invoke weird physics, and Penrose spends the first half of the book laying out some convincing arguments. Yes, I realize that there are counter arguments to his. Not watertight, though. The dialogue between the two camps is still going on; if you look, you'll find Penrose's critics publishing their responses to him, and his re-responses. They're developing their theories and arguments. Penrose is about as intellectually dishonest as the hard AI camp.
Furthermore, the physics Penrose refers to really isn't so weird, at least, not any more than most other 20th century theories. The phenomenon that he speculates on in the emporer's new mind would have been examined anyway -- are being examined, in fact, due to the weirdness encountered when you link the quantum and classical world. There's conflicts to be resolved in the world of physics, and weirdness galore. The only thing that Penrose did that was beyond the ordinary weirdness was to suggest that these types of phenomenon are connected with the phenomenon of consciousness.
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I'm interested in learning more about how to do this analysis. Is there freely available software out there to do these sorts of things? Published papers/algorithms?
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I'm interested in resources (print, online,
organization, whatever) that can teach me how
to engineer a station starting from Ohm's Law
(OK, I also have a Math Degree and a soldering
iron). Any recommendations?
Sometimes I think the best way to get rid of porn w/o infringing on free speech rights would be to make it illegal to charge for or otherwise profit from it.
There. No speech infringment -- people could talk about whatever they wanted, and still even produce the stuff -- but those who wanted to profit from this exploitation would miss out (or really, probably just go underground...). Of course, those of you that wanted to be exploited (yes, I'm talking about viewers of porn as well as those featured in it) would still lose out, unless it was produced for the hell of it by some people... as I suppose it is.