Well, it would have made more sense to have kept selling the product to Mac users until it was no longer profitable. As far as I knew, Premiere is still the most popular film editing app amongst Mac users, which would stand to reason that it is still making a lot of money. So why decide to drop the product entirely, instead of just entering into some healthy competition?
As I understand it (see this article) the new version of Premiere is a major new code base. From that article:
"David Trescot, senior director of Adobe's digital video products group, said the new edition of Premiere is a complete rewrite of the application and it didn't make financial sense to support the Mac anymore."
If this is true, then porting to Mac OS X would be a significant cost for Adobe. I assume they will keep selling the old version for Mac users.
This isn't quite as unreasonable as you make out. Why should Adobe expend a lot of costly engineering, QA, marketing and support costs on a small market with a significant competitior with a locked-in advantage in it. Much better to play in the much bigger world of Windows boxes.
The threat of an $X00 speeding ticket doesn't seem to deter them from dangerous driving...
That's faulty logic. Just because there is still dangerous driving doesn't mean that speeding tickets don't deter it. You'd have to show that the level of dangerous driving wouldn't increase if you dropped the tickets. Imperfect deterence is still deterence.
This can go wrong in so many ways, false positives and false negatives along every border of the strike zone. But aside from the mathematical reasons, why take away the human element even more from baseball?
Mathematical? What sort of errors do you mean? Are you assuming the system makes rounding errors in judging the edge of the strike zone? The QuesTec technology either can or cannot measure the strike zone border (within some defined limit of accuracy). This is a measureable, testable question.
As for taking out the human element, I'm all for removing the human element from the rules of the game. I want the human element to be the skill of the players not the skill of the umpires. If a pitcher is throwing outside the strike zone, thos are balls. Not sometimes balls and sometimes strikes as we have now. A skilled pitcher is better for a consistent strike zone.
Not a great deal there yet, but if you're interested in Jackpot then the Jackpot home page would be worth bookmarking for future reference. Their early work on source code metrics is interesting and the published papers listed are a good starting point for more detailed information than can be delivered in an interview.
Yes but why *mirror*?? I'd much rather have a screen in the hallway that shows when the Next Bus is coming along (why would I want a mirror in the hallway? That's just creepy), a screen over your wet bar that can show cocktail recipies via the Internet, a screen in your main room that can also be a control panel for your TiVO/MP3 jukebox/digital camera gallery?
Well its a lot to do with the style you want. For example a lot of Art Deco/Nouveau cocktail bars incorporate a mirror, so if you're going for that look you may want a mirror anyway. Similarly a mirror in the hallway is traditional; people would adjust their hair, makeup and attire after arriving at the house, often while waiting to be shown in. As a result a lot of people who want a traditional style in their house have a mirror in the hallway, even if their guests no longer use it that way.
If you want your home to follow a particular aesthetic, you'll often have mirrors anyway. This would be a nice additional feature.
But why would anyone want a monitor in their mirror at home???
For when you want to watch TV in the morning while shaving/washing/applying makeup? A mirror in the hallway that also shows when the Next Bus is coming along? A mirror over your wet bar that can show cocktail recipies via the Internet? A mirror in your main room that can also be a control panel for your TiVO/MP3 jukebox/digital camera gallery?
Do you think the new "G5"s will sport new enclosures too..?
The current design is long in the tooth to say the least and is highly associated with the G4 processor... yet I've heard nothing about new enclosures at all..
Dude, RTFA:
"- The new Power Mac has a new case design with "metallic look plastics," and a front panel "mostly made with the same anodized aluminum surface" as the newest Powerbooks."
Its only one short page. Its not slashdotted (yet). How hard was that?
Some very good questions here. One I would disagree with though is:
8.) Most websites go through a "layout" change every couple of years, the "slashdot style" has been pretty much worn out, especially with not being w3c compliant, any changes in the future?
While W3C compliance would definetely be a good thing, I don't think they should change the layout style just because its a few years old. I hate site that change layouts (CNN, BBC news...). Just as I'm comfortable with one organization of material it changes. For sites I visit often, stable layout is very important.
As the old adage says, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. In general Slashdot's layout is clean and easy to read. By all means make incremental improvements but leave the basic, successful layout alone.
While the CD Baby page has not been taken down, its been neutered - all relevant info has been removed and I think its obvious why.
Apple only gets about 6-12 months to have their innovations be innovations before someone else copies them.. putting out the info now, instead of in the 90ish days when the details will all be public, only gives MS and Real a head-start on their idea copying.
Although that may be part of it, I doubt that's why Apple had them take down the information. I think its because the report contained detailed information about the business model behind iTMS and the relationships between Apple and the music labels. This would be considered sensitive commercial information by Apple and the labels as its wide-spread dissemination could hurt future negotiations for any of the parties involved.
The technical and product innovations are less problematic because they are essentially public anyway - anyone can get an iTMS account and try out the product features for themselves. The business agreements behind the scenes are not public and are usually closely guarded secrets.
News.com.com.com has an article up dissecting the contract between Novell and SCO that assigned some right over UNIX to SCO. It seems to be a pretty "murky" agreement as one of the lawyers describes it, but it does show that Novell retains the rights to all the UNIX patents and copyrights.
Hmmm... "We had about 40 of these things fitted to Compaq DeskPro EXDs, and I can assure you the failure rate is pushing 100%." While it may be true that the failure rate for these drives is very high, your annecdotal evidence doesn't tell you this. I don't know how many of these drives have been sold, but assuming it is in the 10,000+ range, then your sample size is way too low. So low that you can't draw any conclusions about the overall failure rate.
Nitpicking? Perhaps, but statistics are an important tool in lots of walks of life from politics to things that really matter like baseball. If the geeks can't use them correctly, what hope have we for the broader population?
After reading the patent itself, it's not clear at all whether "The interactive entertainment network system of this invention..." is intended to mean 'the system that's part of this invention' or 'the system that this invention connects to.' On that basis alone, the patent should probably not have been granted.
This is indeed poorly worded. However patents only covers what is in the claims section. The description can't add anything to the claims. So essentially ignore the rest and look at the claims. It is obvious from the claims that this only covers "a user interface unit [that is] connected to an interactive entertainment network system" and not the VOD system itself.
I just read the patent and although I am not a patent lawyer, I have written patent applications and hold two so I know something about reading them.
This patent does not cover video on demand systems. Read the claims of the patent, which describe the novel features covered. These boil down to:
A user interface widget that allows you to see a list of available items, where the UI widget is scrollable and the user can control the scroll rate via a preference and the widget shows videos available on a back-end VOD system.
This is so far from a "patent [that] would seem to cover pretty much any implementation of a video-on-demand system" that its laughable. It covers a very specific feature that is used in a proscribed and specific way. Most VOD system's probably don't have this UI and even if they did it would be easy to work around it.
The short story: don't over-react, this is not a patent on VODs.
If this patent really does cover any and all media on demand stuff, it'll get shot down quick.
It doesn't. It doesn't even come close to trying to cover those things. It covers a very particular kind of media listing that is scrollable and where the scroll rate is user defined in a preference and where that media view is part of the UI of a VOD system.
The old article stated that the Internet is responsible for declining sales of patterns for doilies and other sewing patters. Here's two reasons i think this is BS.
1.) Given the median age of the people who still knit and sew, i'd say that few of them use a computer, much less the internet.
Okay, bring on the data. What is the median age of people who knit and sew? What percentage of them use computers? What percentage use the Internet? Actual figures from a reliable source would be useful. I just don't buy this argument without seeing some evidence. After all if none of McCall's target audience used the Internet, they'd hardly be worried about a company that sold old sewing patterns on the Internet...
1.) The people who do sew, are so old they're probably just dying off anyway, thus leading to the declining sales.
That assumes that no-one new is taking up the pasttime. Again, do you have any evidence to substantiate this?
Would be nice if it went directly to the individual(s) they phoned instead of into some politician's pocket.
But that would, sadly, create an enormous incentive for people to make false and misleading accusations against telemarketers in order to get the fine money - which is a significant amount. The last thing you want the legal system doing is encouraging illegal activity...
IIRC ID (industrial design) is about aesthetics and functionality. Looking at the other three contestants, most are very skewed in one of the two. Actually I have no idea why Vice-City was in there altogether.
That's because the award was the Designer of the Year, by given by London's Design Museum. Its awarded for all types of design, not just industrial design.
I think a 24% crash in SCOs stock price today shows what the market thinks of this news, and exactly how much Linus has to fear.
Although if I were Linus I wouldn't exactly take the market as my best legal opinion in the matter... IANAL and the M(arket) is sure as hell is NAL either.
The threat to get Linus is as hollow as the rest, no Judge will allow a suit to be brought when the ownership of the IP is in question
Like I said, IANAL, but I would have thought a judge would allow such a suit. After all isn't one of the principle functions of the civil court to decide exactly these sort of contract disputes?
given that Novell own a vast majority of the patents (832 unix and novell vs 117 Sco and Unix), according to the USPTO,
I don't believe the USPTO keeps track of changes of ownership of patent rights. Even if it did, this seems to be primarily a contract dispute not a patent one.
the fact that Novell have taken some time and obviously a lot of expensive Legal advice before making such a series of claims vis a vis the ownership of the Unix IP and seems willing to step in the way of SCOs legal bullets, I'd say SCO's battle to steal Linux from the community has just got infinitely more difficult.
I don't think so. It has got a little harder (hooray) but I don't think it has got that much worse. Even Novell's chief executive is quoted in the article as saying "We believe it unlikely that SCO can demonstrate that it has any ownership whatsoever in those copyrights" (my emphasis). That isn't the totally unequivocal statement I would have liked to hear.
Venture Capitalist. People and institutions invest large sums of money into the funds run by his partnership. He then decides how to invest that money in other companies - usually high tech. startups. Its risky but potentially high reward, depending on how successful the companies he invests in become.
Douglas Hofstadter's book "Gödel, Escher, Bach - an Eternal Golden Braid" has some HEAVY examination of (human and machine) consciousness. My favorite metaphor he uses for consciousness is an ant hill. The ant hill has many layers of emergent, recursive properties.
Indeed, and in fact Dennett and Hofstadter have worked together in some depth. Try The Mind's I co-authored by Hofstadter and Dennett for a fascinating series of essays on this very subject.
You're trying to explain the experience of a thing (subjective view) with a mechanical explanation (objective view)?
Yes:-)
Once you reduce a subjective phenomenon to an objective explanation then what you're describing is no longer a subjective phenomenon and thus you haven't explained anything at all.
I disagree (to recycle the original subject line). There is no reason to believe that subjective phenomena cannot be mechanistic. For example certain low-level image processing phenomena are largely understood at the mechnical level yet also are subjectively experienced. Think about line recognition: I can have the subjective experience of looking at an image and recognizing a line ("oh look, there's a line"). But this can be completely mapped to specific mechanistic processes in the brain. Its certainly plausible to believe that all subjective experiences are explainable by mechnistic processes in this way. Note that I don't claim that we know that is true, just that its at least a plausible model.
So this is an example of a mechanistic process that we experience subjectively. Does that mean it has not subjective experience? Clearly not since we do experience it. Does that mean its not mechanistic? Clearly not since it is measureable mechanistic. So therefore there are at least some subjective experiences that are mechanistic. Maybe they all are?
I fail to see where the contradiction is in thinking that consciousness cannot be explained mechanistically.
I wasn't (trying) to make that claim. I was however saying that consciousness might be a mechanistic process, and that there is in fact evidence that strongly points in that direction. If you want to say that subjective experiences are not mechanistic you are putting forward the dualist argument and I'd ask that you point to some evidence that the world is so.
It almost it seems that you're saying,"The hypothesis that consciousness cannot be explained mechanistically is irrational because it doesn't work when we try to explain consciousness mechanistically."
No, I'm claiming that the dualist view is irrational (using the strict meaning of that word) because you claim there is no rational (aka mechanistic) explanation for subjective phenomena. In other words your claim is that there is a metaphysical explanation for subjectivity. That's irrational. Whether it is true or not is another matter entirely.
I have not read Dennett, but I have seen similar "mechanism" theories for consciousness. My trouble with these explanations is that they concentrate on external, objective descriptions of consciousness while doing little to address its subjective nature. A perfectly crafted theory of consciousness in the context of human behavior or chemical processes in the brain still does not explain the conscious experience, at least not to the satisfaction of a conscious being.
I would urge you to read Dennett. He does indeed adress what we experience as consciousness, and how that is a core part of the way the narrative mind works. Its not merely an external, behaviorist philosophy.
In this case the physical explanation does indeed explain the conscious experience, to the satisfaction of several conscious beings, myself included:-) You may or may not be convinced of course.
The fundamental problem that your view puts forward is not the solpsistic "how do I know if you are really conscious" debate. Rather your view that the subjective experience of consciousness cannot be explained mechanistically, requires a metaphysical component. This dualist approach is literally irrational and posits a special status for human beings that I find hard to buy.
I believe the most incomprehensible thing about the world is that a biological organism can know about itself. How did consciousness develop? Mr. Einstein?
I would not presume to answer for Einstein, but a good theory that has considerable evidence to support it goes something like this:
Early cognitive abilities developed over millions of years in response to complex environmental stimuli. For example, the ability to recognize shapes as various types of animal (predators and prey) and track them has obvious uses for a hunting species like humans.
Once a large enough set of these mid-level cognitive functions has evolved, a central mechanism for making sense of the potentially conflicting interpretations will also evolve. By this point the human brain is complex enough to support a "virtual machine" running a serial narrative interpreter. Basically consciousness is a mechanism for interpreting the world into a coherent story about the decisions that the subconscious mind is making.
This is a (very simplified) description of the philosopher Daniel Dennett's explanation. The work is all Dennett's, any and all mistakes in the summary are mine:-)
I'd strongly recommend Consciousness Explained, Dennett's much more detailed and evidenced description of all this.
Hey, don't give us intellectual blue balls like that... what are these experiments?
Sorry about the blue balls:-)
Try this paper of Dennett's as a starting point. He talks about four pieces of experimental evidence that throw the traditional model of consciousness into doubt. I think the fourth one is the most interesting. Libet ran an experiment where subjects were asked to flex their hand when they saw a rotating wheel reach a particular position. Their neural activity was monitored and they were asked to say when they made the decision to move their hand. The nerve impulse to make their hand move was consistently seen to occur before the subject was aware that they had made the "decision" to move the hand.
It seems that the subconscious makes the decision to move the hand, then the consciousness rationalizes this into a "decision" afterwards.
This is just one example. If this is the underlying model of the way the mind makes decisions, then it has significant implications for the perceived free will we have.
...I was also messed with later when I contemplated what is being said: "You're not here to make a choice, you've already made it, you're here to find out why you made that choice." Wow. So life isn't making choices, but discovering who we are and why we do what we do.
This quote has an interesting parallel to Daniel Dennett's Theory of Consciousness. Dennett argues that the way we experience our lives is essentially false. He says we have a very limited form of free will - the thing that is "us" is in fact a virtual machine that runs on the brain's wetware and is not a mechanism for making choices (though I simplify greatly). The brain is a set of (very many) simplistic parallel processes that perform basic mental tasks including decision making. Consciousness is a virtual, learnt serial process that constructs an ongoing narrative to make sense of the conflicting reports and decisions that these hidden ("subconscious") processes are making.
Thus the subconscious brain is what makes decisions and the conscious "self" rationalizes the decisions by pretending that it makes the choice itself. Essentially the subconscious has already made the choice and the mind is attempting to find out why you made that choice.
If you believe in free will and a more traditional concept of consciousness, there are some very disturbing experiments that show people acting on decisions and only afterwards making the conscious "decision" that "causes" the action. In other words you (sometimes?) do things before you have decided to do them.
I hope, but doubt, that the Wachowski brothers are going to use this model in Matrix Revolutions. How cool would it be if the Matrix and the "real" world of Zion were ultimately the inside of a human mind, say Neo's?
You can find out more about Dennett in his book "Consciousness Explained". A good review gives an overview of his philosophy. Highly provocative reading.
Slashdot Mirror
As I understand it (see this article) the new version of Premiere is a major new code base. From that article:
"David Trescot, senior director of Adobe's digital video products group, said the new edition of Premiere is a complete rewrite of the application and it didn't make financial sense to support the Mac anymore."
If this is true, then porting to Mac OS X would be a significant cost for Adobe. I assume they will keep selling the old version for Mac users.
This isn't quite as unreasonable as you make out. Why should Adobe expend a lot of costly engineering, QA, marketing and support costs on a small market with a significant competitior with a locked-in advantage in it. Much better to play in the much bigger world of Windows boxes.
Uh, who cares?
The threat of an $X00 speeding ticket doesn't seem to deter them from dangerous driving...
That's faulty logic. Just because there is still dangerous driving doesn't mean that speeding tickets don't deter it. You'd have to show that the level of dangerous driving wouldn't increase if you dropped the tickets. Imperfect deterence is still deterence.
This can go wrong in so many ways, false positives and false negatives along every border of the strike zone. But aside from the mathematical reasons, why take away the human element even more from baseball?
Mathematical? What sort of errors do you mean? Are you assuming the system makes rounding errors in judging the edge of the strike zone? The QuesTec technology either can or cannot measure the strike zone border (within some defined limit of accuracy). This is a measureable, testable question.
As for taking out the human element, I'm all for removing the human element from the rules of the game. I want the human element to be the skill of the players not the skill of the umpires. If a pitcher is throwing outside the strike zone, thos are balls. Not sometimes balls and sometimes strikes as we have now. A skilled pitcher is better for a consistent strike zone.
Not a great deal there yet, but if you're interested in Jackpot then the Jackpot home page would be worth bookmarking for future reference. Their early work on source code metrics is interesting and the published papers listed are a good starting point for more detailed information than can be delivered in an interview.
Yes but why *mirror*?? I'd much rather have a screen in the hallway that shows when the Next Bus is coming along (why would I want a mirror in the hallway? That's just creepy), a screen over your wet bar that can show cocktail recipies via the Internet, a screen in your main room that can also be a control panel for your TiVO/MP3 jukebox/digital camera gallery?
Well its a lot to do with the style you want. For example a lot of Art Deco/Nouveau cocktail bars incorporate a mirror, so if you're going for that look you may want a mirror anyway. Similarly a mirror in the hallway is traditional; people would adjust their hair, makeup and attire after arriving at the house, often while waiting to be shown in. As a result a lot of people who want a traditional style in their house have a mirror in the hallway, even if their guests no longer use it that way.
If you want your home to follow a particular aesthetic, you'll often have mirrors anyway. This would be a nice additional feature.
But why would anyone want a monitor in their mirror at home???
For when you want to watch TV in the morning while shaving/washing/applying makeup? A mirror in the hallway that also shows when the Next Bus is coming along? A mirror over your wet bar that can show cocktail recipies via the Internet? A mirror in your main room that can also be a control panel for your TiVO/MP3 jukebox/digital camera gallery?
Do you think the new "G5"s will sport new enclosures too..?
The current design is long in the tooth to say the least and is highly associated with the G4 processor... yet I've heard nothing about new enclosures at all..
Dude, RTFA:
"- The new Power Mac has a new case design with "metallic look plastics," and a front panel "mostly made with the same anodized aluminum surface" as the newest Powerbooks."
Its only one short page. Its not slashdotted (yet). How hard was that?
Some very good questions here. One I would disagree with though is:
8.) Most websites go through a "layout" change every couple of years, the "slashdot style" has been pretty much worn out, especially with not being w3c compliant, any changes in the future?
While W3C compliance would definetely be a good thing, I don't think they should change the layout style just because its a few years old. I hate site that change layouts (CNN, BBC news...). Just as I'm comfortable with one organization of material it changes. For sites I visit often, stable layout is very important.
As the old adage says, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. In general Slashdot's layout is clean and easy to read. By all means make incremental improvements but leave the basic, successful layout alone.
While the CD Baby page has not been taken down, its been neutered - all relevant info has been removed and I think its obvious why.
Apple only gets about 6-12 months to have their innovations be innovations before someone else copies them.. putting out the info now, instead of in the 90ish days when the details will all be public, only gives MS and Real a head-start on their idea copying.
Although that may be part of it, I doubt that's why Apple had them take down the information. I think its because the report contained detailed information about the business model behind iTMS and the relationships between Apple and the music labels. This would be considered sensitive commercial information by Apple and the labels as its wide-spread dissemination could hurt future negotiations for any of the parties involved.
The technical and product innovations are less problematic because they are essentially public anyway - anyone can get an iTMS account and try out the product features for themselves. The business agreements behind the scenes are not public and are usually closely guarded secrets.
News.com.com.com has an article up dissecting the contract between Novell and SCO that assigned some right over UNIX to SCO. It seems to be a pretty "murky" agreement as one of the lawyers describes it, but it does show that Novell retains the rights to all the UNIX patents and copyrights.
Hmmm... "We had about 40 of these things fitted to Compaq DeskPro EXDs, and I can assure you the failure rate is pushing 100%." While it may be true that the failure rate for these drives is very high, your annecdotal evidence doesn't tell you this. I don't know how many of these drives have been sold, but assuming it is in the 10,000+ range, then your sample size is way too low. So low that you can't draw any conclusions about the overall failure rate.
Nitpicking? Perhaps, but statistics are an important tool in lots of walks of life from politics to things that really matter like baseball. If the geeks can't use them correctly, what hope have we for the broader population?
After reading the patent itself, it's not clear at all whether "The interactive entertainment network system of this invention..." is intended to mean 'the system that's part of this invention' or 'the system that this invention connects to.' On that basis alone, the patent should probably not have been granted.
This is indeed poorly worded. However patents only covers what is in the claims section. The description can't add anything to the claims. So essentially ignore the rest and look at the claims. It is obvious from the claims that this only covers "a user interface unit [that is] connected to an interactive entertainment network system" and not the VOD system itself.
I just read the patent and although I am not a patent lawyer, I have written patent applications and hold two so I know something about reading them.
This patent does not cover video on demand systems. Read the claims of the patent, which describe the novel features covered. These boil down to:
A user interface widget that allows you to see a list of available items, where the UI widget is scrollable and the user can control the scroll rate via a preference and the widget shows videos available on a back-end VOD system.
This is so far from a "patent [that] would seem to cover pretty much any implementation of a video-on-demand system" that its laughable. It covers a very specific feature that is used in a proscribed and specific way. Most VOD system's probably don't have this UI and even if they did it would be easy to work around it.
The short story: don't over-react, this is not a patent on VODs.
If this patent really does cover any and all media on demand stuff, it'll get shot down quick.
It doesn't. It doesn't even come close to trying to cover those things. It covers a very particular kind of media listing that is scrollable and where the scroll rate is user defined in a preference and where that media view is part of the UI of a VOD system.
The old article stated that the Internet is responsible for declining sales of patterns for doilies and other sewing patters. Here's two reasons i think this is BS.
1.) Given the median age of the people who still knit and sew, i'd say that few of them use a computer, much less the internet.
Okay, bring on the data. What is the median age of people who knit and sew? What percentage of them use computers? What percentage use the Internet? Actual figures from a reliable source would be useful. I just don't buy this argument without seeing some evidence. After all if none of McCall's target audience used the Internet, they'd hardly be worried about a company that sold old sewing patterns on the Internet...
1.) The people who do sew, are so old they're probably just dying off anyway, thus leading to the declining sales.
That assumes that no-one new is taking up the pasttime. Again, do you have any evidence to substantiate this?
Would be nice if it went directly to the individual(s) they phoned instead of into some politician's pocket.
But that would, sadly, create an enormous incentive for people to make false and misleading accusations against telemarketers in order to get the fine money - which is a significant amount. The last thing you want the legal system doing is encouraging illegal activity...
IIRC ID (industrial design) is about aesthetics and functionality. Looking at the other three contestants, most are very skewed in one of the two. Actually I have no idea why Vice-City was in there altogether.
That's because the award was the Designer of the Year, by given by London's Design Museum. Its awarded for all types of design, not just industrial design.
I think a 24% crash in SCOs stock price today shows what the market thinks of this news, and exactly how much Linus has to fear.
Although if I were Linus I wouldn't exactly take the market as my best legal opinion in the matter... IANAL and the M(arket) is sure as hell is NAL either.
The threat to get Linus is as hollow as the rest, no Judge will allow a suit to be brought when the ownership of the IP is in question
Like I said, IANAL, but I would have thought a judge would allow such a suit. After all isn't one of the principle functions of the civil court to decide exactly these sort of contract disputes?
given that Novell own a vast majority of the patents (832 unix and novell vs 117 Sco and Unix), according to the USPTO,
I don't believe the USPTO keeps track of changes of ownership of patent rights. Even if it did, this seems to be primarily a contract dispute not a patent one.
the fact that Novell have taken some time and obviously a lot of expensive Legal advice before making such a series of claims vis a vis the ownership of the Unix IP and seems willing to step in the way of SCOs legal bullets, I'd say SCO's battle to steal Linux from the community has just got infinitely more difficult.
I don't think so. It has got a little harder (hooray) but I don't think it has got that much worse. Even Novell's chief executive is quoted in the article as saying "We believe it unlikely that SCO can demonstrate that it has any ownership whatsoever in those copyrights" (my emphasis). That isn't the totally unequivocal statement I would have liked to hear.
What's VC stand for?
Venture Capitalist. People and institutions invest large sums of money into the funds run by his partnership. He then decides how to invest that money in other companies - usually high tech. startups. Its risky but potentially high reward, depending on how successful the companies he invests in become.
Douglas Hofstadter's book "Gödel, Escher, Bach - an Eternal Golden Braid" has some HEAVY examination of (human and machine) consciousness. My favorite metaphor he uses for consciousness is an ant hill. The ant hill has many layers of emergent, recursive properties.
Indeed, and in fact Dennett and Hofstadter have worked together in some depth. Try The Mind's I co-authored by Hofstadter and Dennett for a fascinating series of essays on this very subject.
You're trying to explain the experience of a thing (subjective view) with a mechanical explanation (objective view)?
:-)
Yes
Once you reduce a subjective phenomenon to an objective explanation then what you're describing is no longer a subjective phenomenon and thus you haven't explained anything at all.
I disagree (to recycle the original subject line). There is no reason to believe that subjective phenomena cannot be mechanistic. For example certain low-level image processing phenomena are largely understood at the mechnical level yet also are subjectively experienced. Think about line recognition: I can have the subjective experience of looking at an image and recognizing a line ("oh look, there's a line"). But this can be completely mapped to specific mechanistic processes in the brain. Its certainly plausible to believe that all subjective experiences are explainable by mechnistic processes in this way. Note that I don't claim that we know that is true, just that its at least a plausible model.
So this is an example of a mechanistic process that we experience subjectively. Does that mean it has not subjective experience? Clearly not since we do experience it. Does that mean its not mechanistic? Clearly not since it is measureable mechanistic. So therefore there are at least some subjective experiences that are mechanistic. Maybe they all are?
I fail to see where the contradiction is in thinking that consciousness cannot be explained mechanistically.
I wasn't (trying) to make that claim. I was however saying that consciousness might be a mechanistic process, and that there is in fact evidence that strongly points in that direction. If you want to say that subjective experiences are not mechanistic you are putting forward the dualist argument and I'd ask that you point to some evidence that the world is so.
It almost it seems that you're saying,"The hypothesis that consciousness cannot be explained mechanistically is irrational because it doesn't work when we try to explain consciousness mechanistically."
No, I'm claiming that the dualist view is irrational (using the strict meaning of that word) because you claim there is no rational (aka mechanistic) explanation for subjective phenomena. In other words your claim is that there is a metaphysical explanation for subjectivity. That's irrational. Whether it is true or not is another matter entirely.
I have not read Dennett, but I have seen similar "mechanism" theories for consciousness. My trouble with these explanations is that they concentrate on external, objective descriptions of consciousness while doing little to address its subjective nature. A perfectly crafted theory of consciousness in the context of human behavior or chemical processes in the brain still does not explain the conscious experience, at least not to the satisfaction of a conscious being.
:-) You may or may not be convinced of course.
I would urge you to read Dennett. He does indeed adress what we experience as consciousness, and how that is a core part of the way the narrative mind works. Its not merely an external, behaviorist philosophy.
In this case the physical explanation does indeed explain the conscious experience, to the satisfaction of several conscious beings, myself included
The fundamental problem that your view puts forward is not the solpsistic "how do I know if you are really conscious" debate. Rather your view that the subjective experience of consciousness cannot be explained mechanistically, requires a metaphysical component. This dualist approach is literally irrational and posits a special status for human beings that I find hard to buy.
I believe the most incomprehensible thing about the world is that a biological organism can know about itself. How did consciousness develop? Mr. Einstein?
:-)
I would not presume to answer for Einstein, but a good theory that has considerable evidence to support it goes something like this:
Early cognitive abilities developed over millions of years in response to complex environmental stimuli. For example, the ability to recognize shapes as various types of animal (predators and prey) and track them has obvious uses for a hunting species like humans.
Once a large enough set of these mid-level cognitive functions has evolved, a central mechanism for making sense of the potentially conflicting interpretations will also evolve. By this point the human brain is complex enough to support a "virtual machine" running a serial narrative interpreter. Basically consciousness is a mechanism for interpreting the world into a coherent story about the decisions that the subconscious mind is making.
This is a (very simplified) description of the philosopher Daniel Dennett's explanation. The work is all Dennett's, any and all mistakes in the summary are mine
I'd strongly recommend Consciousness Explained, Dennett's much more detailed and evidenced description of all this.
Hey, don't give us intellectual blue balls like that... what are these experiments?
Sorry about the blue balls
Try this paper of Dennett's as a starting point. He talks about four pieces of experimental evidence that throw the traditional model of consciousness into doubt. I think the fourth one is the most interesting. Libet ran an experiment where subjects were asked to flex their hand when they saw a rotating wheel reach a particular position. Their neural activity was monitored and they were asked to say when they made the decision to move their hand. The nerve impulse to make their hand move was consistently seen to occur before the subject was aware that they had made the "decision" to move the hand.
It seems that the subconscious makes the decision to move the hand, then the consciousness rationalizes this into a "decision" afterwards.
This is just one example. If this is the underlying model of the way the mind makes decisions, then it has significant implications for the perceived free will we have.
...I was also messed with later when I contemplated what is being said: "You're not here to make a choice, you've already made it, you're here to find out why you made that choice." Wow. So life isn't making choices, but discovering who we are and why we do what we do.
This quote has an interesting parallel to Daniel Dennett's Theory of Consciousness. Dennett argues that the way we experience our lives is essentially false. He says we have a very limited form of free will - the thing that is "us" is in fact a virtual machine that runs on the brain's wetware and is not a mechanism for making choices (though I simplify greatly). The brain is a set of (very many) simplistic parallel processes that perform basic mental tasks including decision making. Consciousness is a virtual, learnt serial process that constructs an ongoing narrative to make sense of the conflicting reports and decisions that these hidden ("subconscious") processes are making.
Thus the subconscious brain is what makes decisions and the conscious "self" rationalizes the decisions by pretending that it makes the choice itself. Essentially the subconscious has already made the choice and the mind is attempting to find out why you made that choice.
If you believe in free will and a more traditional concept of consciousness, there are some very disturbing experiments that show people acting on decisions and only afterwards making the conscious "decision" that "causes" the action. In other words you (sometimes?) do things before you have decided to do them.
I hope, but doubt, that the Wachowski brothers are going to use this model in Matrix Revolutions. How cool would it be if the Matrix and the "real" world of Zion were ultimately the inside of a human mind, say Neo's?
You can find out more about Dennett in his book "Consciousness Explained". A good review gives an overview of his philosophy. Highly provocative reading.