If this theory really has anything to show for itself scientifically, why is it that its chief proponents are afraid to even submit a proposal for legitimate research into this supposedly scientific theory?
So you really think it would be worth following *every* driver in the US just on the off chance that it might have helped us catch Ramzi Yousef earlier had we done this 12 years ago?
Yeah, that's exactly my point; you don't need to keep tabs on every citizen in order to catch terrorists who are stupid enough to try to get their deposit back on a rental van.
That's really the point, isn't it? It doesn't target criminals at all, except insofar as any citizen might be a criminal. By targeting the general population, they greatly increase the number of things to investigate when criminal activity does occur. But criminal activity will be a miniscule portion of what they are actually recording, and more significant criminal activity will take steps to cover its tracks and deflect attention (stolen license plates, etc.), so this will only end up stopping petty criminals, make things safer for organized crime, and give anyone who wants to invade other people's privacy a very convenient infrastructure for stalking, eavesdropping, following, etc. Crap like this only helps real terrorists, and the ones it helps you catch are amateur enough that they would have been caught anyway without this.
Youre right - I agreed with a similar comment above. This is the Freudian view but I think it is the other way around -- being able to recognize oneself in a mirror is a manifestation of self-awareness. Self awareness is the necessary condition for the mirror stage.
Yeah you're quite right -- take it up with Freud:) It's not necessary to actually be able to see yourself in the mirror; self awareness is actually the necessary condition for the mirror stage to take place.
Even better would be to get acknowledged experts to edit Wikipedia entries, and publish the results as a separate encyclopedia (not editable by the masses). I am pretty sure the Wikipedia license would allow and even encourage such projects. I think we will see more of that in the future -- bound and online versions of Wikipedia entries that have been vetted for accuracy and improved upon by experts. Considering all kinds of possible specialized encyclopedias, the possibilities are endless. Really I think that is the future of Wikipedia's contribution to human knowledge -- Wikipedia itself will always be changing and there will always be debates about whether the information there is valuable or not, but projects built upon Wikipedia that go through more traditional scholarly processes of fact-checking and peer review. In that sense, I think Wikipedia is as important to the future history of human knowledge as Diderot's Encyclopédie is to its past history.
Of course, these offshoot projects would be governed by the GNU Free Documentation license, which, if I understand it correctly, would require that the new improved edited-by-experts entries were available to the public to edit and mess with themselves. That, of course, is the biggest strength of the open source model in general, and it is the underlying reason I think Wikipedia is so important.
Actually true self-awareness can be more simply defined as awareness of oneself as a self -- you are describing intelligence, not self awareness, when you comment about "thinking and communicating in ways it wasn't programmed to."
You're still right, the robots have not achieved self-awareness; all they've done is passed an artificial test of self-awareness (the ability to recognize oneself in a mirror). As others pointed out above, they do so by trickery rather than by knowledge of self. And as I pointed out above, recognizing oneself in a mirror is a necessary condition of self-awareness, but not a sufficient condition.
I think the reference to self-awareness here is based on psychological understandings of self-awareness in human beings. Since Freud the understanding of human self-awareness has located the "mirror stage" as the key moment in child development, the point at which the child becomes aware of him/herself as an independent "self." Of course, the mistake here is to believe that the mirror stage itself is both a necessary and sufficient condition for self-awareness; it is for humans a necessary condition, but it is not a sufficient condition for any entity. Especially in this case, where the robots pass the mirror stage by what is essentially trickery in this context -- achieving not self-awareness but an ability to manifest a particular symptom of self-awareness.
When the PATRIOT act was passed, conservatives blew off complaints that its provisions would be used to target people who were not "terrorists" in the sense that members of al Qaeda are terrorists. It was written off as liberal paranoia, and lawmakers assured us that these laws would only be used to target real enemies of the United States. Since then, the law's provisions have been used to target vandals, drug dealers, anarchists, and peace activists, and now eco-fanatics. Many people in law enforcement have been scrambling to define everything as "terrorism" so they can do sneak-and-peek searches, look at what library books people are reading, etc. It's exactly what the "liberal paranoids" were warning about.
I'm not sure what kind of stink you think I should have raised, or whom I should raise it with. No laws were violated. I was annoyed and felt somewhat threatened by people's behavior on the flight, but all I really lost was an hour and a half of work. On the return flight I lost the conference proceedings to the unnecessary search, for which I filled out the proper paperwork and received compensation from the airline. The US Marshals coming to my house was also annoying, but they didn't search my apartment, they didn't detain me (though I had to spend an hour or so at the coffeeshop with them), and they never seemed to regard me as any kind of threat. I was not happy with any of this, but I also don't think I went through anything worth suing anyone over or whining to the media about. It's a lesson in the contemporary paranoia that surrounds the war on terrorism, for sure, as well as in some of the pitfalls of racial profiling, but this is just not something to call the ACLU about. Frankly, there are many more significant abuses of the government surrounding the war on terrorism that such advocacy groups should be focusing their attention on. I suppose I could have sent my story to a more prominent blog like slashdot, but that's really about the only point you made that makes any sense to me.
Slashdot Mirror
Post multiple copies of the same story about the Firefox contest!
If this theory really has anything to show for itself scientifically, why is it that its chief proponents are afraid to even submit a proposal for legitimate research into this supposedly scientific theory?
This story is just another slashdot dupe, from 4 billion years ago.
Religions don't kill people; religious people kill people!
I am intrigued by these theories and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
What were the ancient Greeks doing in the American midwest?
So you really think it would be worth following *every* driver in the US just on the off chance that it might have helped us catch Ramzi Yousef earlier had we done this 12 years ago?
Yeah, that's exactly my point; you don't need to keep tabs on every citizen in order to catch terrorists who are stupid enough to try to get their deposit back on a rental van.
The Group of the Martyr Ebenezer Scrooge will soon have its revenge on this infidel.
Everyone knows there is no such thing as a harmless Santa Claus file.
That's really the point, isn't it? It doesn't target criminals at all, except insofar as any citizen might be a criminal. By targeting the general population, they greatly increase the number of things to investigate when criminal activity does occur. But criminal activity will be a miniscule portion of what they are actually recording, and more significant criminal activity will take steps to cover its tracks and deflect attention (stolen license plates, etc.), so this will only end up stopping petty criminals, make things safer for organized crime, and give anyone who wants to invade other people's privacy a very convenient infrastructure for stalking, eavesdropping, following, etc. Crap like this only helps real terrorists, and the ones it helps you catch are amateur enough that they would have been caught anyway without this.
Is it a crowded political debate?
Youre right - I agreed with a similar comment above. This is the Freudian view but I think it is the other way around -- being able to recognize oneself in a mirror is a manifestation of self-awareness. Self awareness is the necessary condition for the mirror stage.
Yeah you're quite right -- take it up with Freud :) It's not necessary to actually be able to see yourself in the mirror; self awareness is actually the necessary condition for the mirror stage to take place.
Of course, these offshoot projects would be governed by the GNU Free Documentation license, which, if I understand it correctly, would require that the new improved edited-by-experts entries were available to the public to edit and mess with themselves. That, of course, is the biggest strength of the open source model in general, and it is the underlying reason I think Wikipedia is so important.
I've seen self-awareness demonstrated in a seven line perl script.
You're still right, the robots have not achieved self-awareness; all they've done is passed an artificial test of self-awareness (the ability to recognize oneself in a mirror). As others pointed out above, they do so by trickery rather than by knowledge of self. And as I pointed out above, recognizing oneself in a mirror is a necessary condition of self-awareness, but not a sufficient condition.
I think the reference to self-awareness here is based on psychological understandings of self-awareness in human beings. Since Freud the understanding of human self-awareness has located the "mirror stage" as the key moment in child development, the point at which the child becomes aware of him/herself as an independent "self." Of course, the mistake here is to believe that the mirror stage itself is both a necessary and sufficient condition for self-awareness; it is for humans a necessary condition, but it is not a sufficient condition for any entity. Especially in this case, where the robots pass the mirror stage by what is essentially trickery in this context -- achieving not self-awareness but an ability to manifest a particular symptom of self-awareness.
It costs a buck-oh-five.
When the PATRIOT act was passed, conservatives blew off complaints that its provisions would be used to target people who were not "terrorists" in the sense that members of al Qaeda are terrorists. It was written off as liberal paranoia, and lawmakers assured us that these laws would only be used to target real enemies of the United States. Since then, the law's provisions have been used to target vandals, drug dealers, anarchists, and peace activists, and now eco-fanatics. Many people in law enforcement have been scrambling to define everything as "terrorism" so they can do sneak-and-peek searches, look at what library books people are reading, etc. It's exactly what the "liberal paranoids" were warning about.
Actually, we don't usually declare wars; we just wage them.
Until the tsunamis get ahold of these.
No; actually, that's a feature.
I'm not sure what kind of stink you think I should have raised, or whom I should raise it with. No laws were violated. I was annoyed and felt somewhat threatened by people's behavior on the flight, but all I really lost was an hour and a half of work. On the return flight I lost the conference proceedings to the unnecessary search, for which I filled out the proper paperwork and received compensation from the airline. The US Marshals coming to my house was also annoying, but they didn't search my apartment, they didn't detain me (though I had to spend an hour or so at the coffeeshop with them), and they never seemed to regard me as any kind of threat. I was not happy with any of this, but I also don't think I went through anything worth suing anyone over or whining to the media about. It's a lesson in the contemporary paranoia that surrounds the war on terrorism, for sure, as well as in some of the pitfalls of racial profiling, but this is just not something to call the ACLU about. Frankly, there are many more significant abuses of the government surrounding the war on terrorism that such advocacy groups should be focusing their attention on. I suppose I could have sent my story to a more prominent blog like slashdot, but that's really about the only point you made that makes any sense to me.
Actually, I believe it is you, the viewer, who engages in this particular repetitive motion.