In each step of the process, each robotic arm builds a replica of itself on the _opposite_ plate. That means that at each step the number of arms is multiplied by two - ie. exponential growth.
Since the arm is not building the replica on the plate it occupies itself, all that is required at the next growth step is for the plates to be moved relative to each other in such a way that each arm is facing an empty area of the opposite plate.
Can these robotic arms perform other actions, or are they designed in advance only to construct replicas of themselves?
Perhaps you could grow them onto the underside of your boss's shoes and watch him slide around on a million tiny scuttling legs. A worthy use of the millions this must have cost.
Given that the concepts of "good" and "bad" exist only in human minds (thinks: I wonder how many christians there are on slashdot), you are making a point about your opinions not about the "true" state of things. You are essentially saying "bugger off it's not my problem - scientists and techies just come up with the ideas others can deal with how it eventually gets used". Well if the scientists are too preoccupied to consider the effects of their discoveries, who will? Marketing guys and politicians? - people who make even the most nihilistic, atheistic, hyper-skeptical scientists look like Gandhi.
For a hologram, you really want to reconstruct the original light (with same phase and amplitude). If you stored the light itself and released it later, you would have a read-once hologram, of dubious usefulness.
Re:does this break the theory of relativity?
on
Stop, Light.
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· Score: 2
I know that WCDMA systems produce much less EM interference with electrical devices because they emit a continuous noise-like signal, without the sudden jumps in signal level which characterise TDMA systems. I wonder if this would alter the effects seen here. I guess 3rd generation phones might prove to be less of a health risk.
Knowledge = Information - lies - porn. Crude, no?
on
Information Poisoning
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· Score: 1
Having read The Alienist, and liked it, it surprises me that its author could come out with such an ill thought out article, unless (long shot) he meant to.
As he rightly points out we are constantly inundated with information, which does not constitute knowledge, and as a result many people fail to extract any real meaning from the stuff that gets piped into their brains every day. However, he implicitly seems to assume that the difference between the two is simply that knowledge is true and does not involve porn.
When an individual makes a judgement as to the truth of a piece of information, he does not simply check whether it is consistent with various other pieces of information which he knows to be true. The decision is based on any number of unquantifiable tendencies and attitudes, which are a result of that person's past experiences and the conclusions he has drawn from them. The building of knowledge seems, at least in part, to involve being exposed to the widest possible range of information, and learning to assess it.
Certainly, it is the duty of a parent to protect children from disagreeable influences, and certainly particular types of material can be considered obscene and should be restricted, but Caleb Carr is saying that the general population of the world needs to be somehow protected by their governments from people who may not be telling the truth. Here we have an arrogant man saying that all the "ordinary" people need to be protected from their own stupidity by a government-appointed elite. Rather sickening really.
Rather than the immature, utterly impractical suggestions here, maybe we should work on encouraging people to form their own opinions of what they see. Also, and more importantly, perhaps we should take more effort to emphasise that information is not experience. Even a slashdotter can see that the full depth of life can't be projected down a CRT.
(I'm not American BTW)
I was intreagued by the answers to the "mission" question. Bush's answer just seems to be the "eliminate class divisions, fill the country with fine, upstanding, free people and be nice to the kids" bollocks every (successful, 1st world) politician in the world seems obliged to spout. Meanwhile Hagelin's views appear on first reading to be more likely to get him committed than elected.
On second reading, though, I rather like Hagelin's answer. I don't necessarily agree with it (and he utterly betrays his principles of underlying one-ness with his answer to the globalisation question), but at least he actually says something new and philosophical. Politics has been the subject of some of the most astonishingly original thought in history, but it seems awfully rare for an actual politician to step back from the immediate practical issues and say something interesting about the nature of government. We are living in a time where ideas which previously belonged only in academic circles, such as the nature of information or chaos and emergent behaviour, are becoming practically important (and mutating rapidly at the same time). It would be nice to have someone in charge who liked to ponder on the big questions every now and then
People trying to make a point often seem to invent an "prevailing opinion" to argue against. I don't think that many people really think computers are omnipotent. Good idea for a book though.
Another good reason for tackling this point is that understanding what computers *aren't* highlights some really odd things about what minds *are*.
Books like this one, "The Emporer's New Mind" and "Godel, Esher, Bach" do do seem to imply some truly wierd things about the capabilities of human brains.
Incidentally, does anyone know of any research into analogue computing approaches to artificial intelligence? It seems fairly clear from the maths that nothing which is limited to carrying out tasks a Turing machine could perform will ever shed that much light on the nature of the mind
Slashdot Mirror
In each step of the process, each robotic arm builds a replica of itself on the _opposite_ plate. That means that at each step the number of arms is multiplied by two - ie. exponential growth.
Since the arm is not building the replica on the plate it occupies itself, all that is required at the next growth step is for the plates to be moved relative to each other in such a way that each arm is facing an empty area of the opposite plate.
Can these robotic arms perform other actions, or are they designed in advance only to construct replicas of themselves?
Perhaps you could grow them onto the underside of your boss's shoes and watch him slide around on a million tiny scuttling legs. A worthy use of the millions this must have cost.
Given that the concepts of "good" and "bad" exist only in human minds (thinks: I wonder how many christians there are on slashdot), you are making a point about your opinions not about the "true" state of things. You are essentially saying "bugger off it's not my problem - scientists and techies just come up with the ideas others can deal with how it eventually gets used". Well if the scientists are too preoccupied to consider the effects of their discoveries, who will? Marketing guys and politicians? - people who make even the most nihilistic, atheistic, hyper-skeptical scientists look like Gandhi.
For a hologram, you really want to reconstruct the original light (with same phase and amplitude). If you stored the light itself and released it later, you would have a read-once hologram, of dubious usefulness.
Cerenkov radiation, I think
I know that WCDMA systems produce much less EM interference with electrical devices because they emit a continuous noise-like signal, without the sudden jumps in signal level which characterise TDMA systems. I wonder if this would alter the effects seen here. I guess 3rd generation phones might prove to be less of a health risk.
Having read The Alienist, and liked it, it surprises me that its author could come out with such an ill thought out article, unless (long shot) he meant to.
As he rightly points out we are constantly inundated with information, which does not constitute knowledge, and as a result many people fail to extract any real meaning from the stuff that gets piped into their brains every day. However, he implicitly seems to assume that the difference between the two is simply that knowledge is true and does not involve porn.
When an individual makes a judgement as to the truth of a piece of information, he does not simply check whether it is consistent with various other pieces of information which he knows to be true. The decision is based on any number of unquantifiable tendencies and attitudes, which are a result of that person's past experiences and the conclusions he has drawn from them. The building of knowledge seems, at least in part, to involve being exposed to the widest possible range of information, and learning to assess it.
Certainly, it is the duty of a parent to protect children from disagreeable influences, and certainly particular types of material can be considered obscene and should be restricted, but Caleb Carr is saying that the general population of the world needs to be somehow protected by their governments from people who may not be telling the truth. Here we have an arrogant man saying that all the "ordinary" people need to be protected from their own stupidity by a government-appointed elite. Rather sickening really.
Rather than the immature, utterly impractical suggestions here, maybe we should work on encouraging people to form their own opinions of what they see. Also, and more importantly, perhaps we should take more effort to emphasise that information is not experience. Even a slashdotter can see that the full depth of life can't be projected down a CRT.
(I'm not American BTW)
I was intreagued by the answers to the "mission" question. Bush's answer just seems to be the "eliminate class divisions, fill the country with fine, upstanding, free people and be nice to the kids" bollocks every (successful, 1st world) politician in the world seems obliged to spout. Meanwhile Hagelin's views appear on first reading to be more likely to get him committed than elected.
On second reading, though, I rather like Hagelin's answer. I don't necessarily agree with it (and he utterly betrays his principles of underlying one-ness with his answer to the globalisation question), but at least he actually says something new and philosophical. Politics has been the subject of some of the most astonishingly original thought in history, but it seems awfully rare for an actual politician to step back from the immediate practical issues and say something interesting about the nature of government. We are living in a time where ideas which previously belonged only in academic circles, such as the nature of information or chaos and emergent behaviour, are becoming practically important (and mutating rapidly at the same time). It would be nice to have someone in charge who liked to ponder on the big questions every now and then
(Haven't read it yet, BTW)
People trying to make a point often seem to invent an "prevailing opinion" to argue against. I don't think that many people really think computers are omnipotent. Good idea for a book though.Another good reason for tackling this point is that understanding what computers *aren't* highlights some really odd things about what minds *are*.
Books like this one, "The Emporer's New Mind" and "Godel, Esher, Bach" do do seem to imply some truly wierd things about the capabilities of human brains.
Incidentally, does anyone know of any research into analogue computing approaches to artificial intelligence? It seems fairly clear from the maths that nothing which is limited to carrying out tasks a Turing machine could perform will ever shed that much light on the nature of the mind