According to some, consciousness and self-awareness arise out of Strange Loops
I think, therefore I am. I realize I am, therefore I think. But after than I'm a broken record!
Horribly simplistic to keep the post short: Without some "spontaneous activity" injected into the strange loop that is a self-aware entity, might we not get stuck in the loop, and end up being less cognizant than a fruit fly?
Someone with a knowledge of real-world AI can flog me, but you CAN program a computer to be self-aware. It patches itself, reports crashes in it's own log, recognizes intrusions (hopefully). But without that bit of "spontaneous activity" the system can never gain an outside perspective. It can never "unask the question". So it's just as dumb as a Bach fugue playing itself on a player piano.
To sum up, it's Self Referentiality PLUS this "spontaneous activity" that is at the very core of sentience.
The U.S. is supposed to be a society committed to justice and the spirit of the law.
The quote from U.S. vs Thomas makes it seem like the letter of the law is most important. It isn't. Or at least it shouldn't be.
That's the WHOLE POINT of trial by jury "of your peers". If the letter of the law was the only criteria for judging guilty vs. innocent, then it wouldn't matter at all who's peers sat in the jury box. My "personal issues" are exactly what makes me a much better juror than some thoughtless Turing machine.
U.S. vs. Thomas is a travesty if you value trial by jury as envisioned by our founding fathers.
Give the FIJA site a thorough reading. It ought to be mandatory grade-school curriculum.
Please somebody mod this guy up. He's actually on topic and informative.
Moderators, the topic is "Replacing a Thinkpad", NOT boycotting China, not atrocities committed by various nations, and certainly not the Iraq War or Saddam Hussein. These are all good topics. They are not the topic of this thread.
I was excited to read here about replacing a Thinkpad. I did not click on "Replacing a Thinkpad" to read about human rights violations or the erosion of the US constitution. This is not DIGG. There is a -1 Off Topic mod. Please use it. Or at least don't mod stuff up that is so totally off topic while Mr. Plug here sits at a (Score:2) for talking about.. wait for it.... laptops!
Thank you.
(Now I'll sit and watch as I get modded Off Topic. Oh the irony.)
>If you're going to pirate, don't do it for profit. I can't support piracy for profit, sorry.
Is anyone else picturing Blackbeard and Captain Hook standing in line at the IRS with their 501(c) forms in hand, discussing their tax exempt status?
"Arrrr, we be a powerful Recreational Club we be!" - "Avast ye lowly deckswabber, we make a fine Fraternal Beneficiary Society we do!" "So it be a life of Charitable Givin' for ye?" - "Aye! Donate me hearties, Yo ho!" "Well blimey, if I don't stuff that in me canon and fire it."
While I agree with you in an "ideal world" kind of way, I automatically assume you're young and single and have a comfortable income working reasonable hours, without many obligations in life.
Why? Because most of us don't have time to watch a lot of full length feature films without breaks. If we owned a full season on DVD, we'd have to hit the pause button 3 times per episode anyway. We iron our clothes and cook during commercials, we answer the phone. We sit with our laptops and answer email while maybe glancing at Mythbusters. We pack lunches, open mail, arrange schedules, write thank you notes, replace light bulbs, take out the trash, we clean our bathrooms(note to bachelors!), run out for milk, feed the dog, let the dog out, let the dog in, answer the phone again.... We clean up after our kids who will wake up and need a drink any minute.
And then finally, we sigh with relief when we get 25 minutes to veg out in front of the last half of whatever the heck is on because we don't really care. Our eyes are glazed over before we even reach the couch.
A 20+ hour long commercial-free movie sounds like a sick joke to anyone with family and a lawn to mow. Enjoy this time in your life. It won't come again for a long time.
I think he'd receive a lot more meaningful and helpful comments if he had placed his problem in context.
Such as:
- Numerically solving the wave functions describing the taut jiggle of Natalie Portman's bum. - Mapping out the three dimensional wave constructs of that odd humming in your basement. - Discovering the finite elements of romantic pursuit and the finite differences between romantic pursuit and stalking.
Interesting.. there are 2 posts here calling the major networks racist in favor of whites...
The 2000 Census states that 12.9 percent of the population is "Black or African American"
I'd like to see some hard statistics for broadcasting, but it seems that more than 12.9% of the faces seen on the major networks are ""Black or African American".
Comparing programming on all channels, according to the Census 22.9% of the population is non-white. But taking TV programming as a whole, a visiting alien might get the impression that about 35 or 40% of our population was non-white. It doesn't take much channel surfing to see that a good deal more than 1 in 5 people are non-white.
Racism in any form is disgusting and sad. It's not a word to throw around lightly. Statistically speaking, I think "the TV" (as Homer would say) does a pretty good job in favor of minorites. You just don't see it when watching your favorite sit-coms, as they're usually pretty targeted to a specific cultural audience.
Having a 2 year-old is like having a visiting alien sometimes... the things they say can get you thinking about all kinds of things.
[VOICEMAIL] "Um. Hi. Yeah. How are you? I just wanted to call to touch base and see how you were doing.
Give me a call when you get a chance. Talk to you soon. Buy."
>Well, you've more or less have put on a major concern of *ALL* smartphones. Whether it runs OS X (iPhone), Windows Mobile, Linux, Symbian, RIM OS (Blackberry) - they all meet the same criteria. Most people will install a random binary on their smartphone if it does something "interesting", regardless of what it runs.
Whatever. You're going to be so jealous that my phone has Comet Cursor and Weather Bug on it.
Damn. That was pretty fascinating. The bottom line is that too much of any one thing isn't good for you. Even water.
And... we're still dealing with an eating problem. Not a weight problem.
How about if we replace "spinach, nuts, and berries" with "mixed leafy greens & broccoli, 1 cup beans, and 1 cup fruit" ?
And a multi-vitamin with "Citri-Cal" the really easy to absorb calcium.
There are no such things as weight problems. Only eating problems.
Try a diet of only water, spinach, berries, nuts, and vitamins. Limit the nuts and berries to a cup each per day.
Fill up the rest of the way on as much spinach as you like.
The movie industry will begin charging consumers to watch trailers.
Pricing info has yet to be released, but it is expected that trailers made available on the internet will be cheaper and probably different than the Pay-per-View trailers made available for television.
X-files is to blame for my refusal to watch long story arc shows anymore, Lost, Heroes, etc. A good story arc doesn't just fizzle away, but you can bet your TV that's what will happen. It gets to the point that it's obvious the writers are just making things up from week to week just to string the viewers along. The plot starts to look like swiss cheese, and then it just melts away.
I was hooked on Chris Carter's long running "mythology". Talk about getting snookered.
I'm not sure how the Japanese military works, and it's been a long time since I was 18, but I do remember thinking that if I'm old enough to be sent into combat, then I'm damn sure old enough to vote.
If we can trust 18 year olds with a ballet, a motorcycle, a firearm, or to drive a tank in Iraq, it sounds like pure hypocrisy to deny them a beer. I'm sure Japan has its fair share of hypocrisy.
As the father of a 2 year-old I can assure you that you learned many things from Sesame Street. My boy learns tons of things from Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers. From sharing and telling the truth to letters and manners etc etc etc. He's an absolute sponge. Heck he even learned about getting lost from Finding Nemo. When we go out he does NOT want to get lost like Nemo. And NO of course he doesn't learn those things just from the TV. But the day I scolded him about something and he told me he was mad at me and going to run away to Nana's house I knew for SURE he was learning things on TV. He's freakin 2! Somebody had run away on Mr. Rogers, one of the Make-Believe puppets. Granted, TV is the last resort for things educational, but when it does get turned on, he's learning something.
>I don't remember learning anything from things like Sesame Street
How many things at all can you remember from when you were 2? 3? I don't remember learning to read. Heck I don't remember learning to type either. I remember when I couldn't do either. But the learning part..it happens so insidiously that it's just not a memorable event.
As someone who is working on their PhD you should know that the entire concept of play is based on learning. Just look at animals playing. Now look at kids playing. They are learning everything from refined motor skills to problem solving to empathy, character judgement, following directions, cause & effect, etc etc etc etc.
Learning is the root of all play. Just ask a kitty. Hence, good games are educational whether they mean to be or not.
The important question is this: How can we make good games more educational? Because currently, we suck at it.
An interesting example, one of my gamer buddies lives in Quebec. He spoke no English but now attributes his decent mastery of English to an FPS game! He learned it in game, on the forums, on TeamSpeak, etc etc. He taught himself English to get along in an English Language game. And I was there for most of the process and can vouch for it.
Anybody know a great game with a predominantly Spanish speaking or Mandarin speaking community? I'm in!
Now how can we better promote game learning by design?
Why should I have to reveal my real number when placing a call?
Yes I know this is a forum and calls are more "personal".
But sometimes I call companies. Or heck maybe city hall.
Where does the tracking and ID'ing end?
Your comment is Insightful but seems a bit dramatic. We don't need Skynet to rob us of some of our humanity, or as some will argue, to change what it means to be human.
On the other hand, I don't think "mechanization" is that important in the grand scheme of things. It's "connectedness" that is changing what it means to be human.
Try this thought experiment: Think of any good movie set any time 15 years ago or more. Say The Godfather, The Graduate, heck even Ghostbusters (since I seem to be stuck on movies starting with 'G' ), it doesn't matter. You could add amazing materials science, advanced robotics, intelligent toasters, whatever, most mechanization won't change the movie that much. Want to completely ruin the movie? Give everybody in it a cell phone.
IMO nothing has changed what it means to be human more than our new degree of connectedness. If you read some good near-future fiction (Rainbow's End and Diamond Age obviously come to mind), the authors seem to agree.
Changes in how we communicate and how we connect with each other are far more fundamental to our humanity than any new gadgetry or method of getting work done. Mechanization is an outdated bogeyman.
Slashdot Mirror
According to some, consciousness and self-awareness arise out of Strange Loops
:)
I think, therefore I am.
I realize I am, therefore I think.
But after than I'm a broken record!
Horribly simplistic to keep the post short:
Without some "spontaneous activity" injected into the strange loop that is a self-aware entity, might we not get stuck in the loop, and end up being less cognizant than a fruit fly?
Someone with a knowledge of real-world AI can flog me, but you CAN program a computer to be self-aware. It patches itself, reports crashes in it's own log, recognizes intrusions (hopefully). But without that bit of "spontaneous activity" the system can never gain an outside perspective. It can never "unask the question". So it's just as dumb as a Bach fugue playing itself on a player piano.
To sum up, it's Self Referentiality PLUS this "spontaneous activity" that is at the very core of sentience.
At least that's how I understand it.
You couldn't be more wrong.
...in a society committed to the rule of law
The U.S. is supposed to be a society committed to justice and the spirit of the law. The quote from U.S. vs Thomas makes it seem like the letter of the law is most important. It isn't. Or at least it shouldn't be.
That's the WHOLE POINT of trial by jury "of your peers". If the letter of the law was the only criteria for judging guilty vs. innocent, then it wouldn't matter at all who's peers sat in the jury box.
My "personal issues" are exactly what makes me a much better juror than some thoughtless Turing machine.
U.S. vs. Thomas is a travesty if you value trial by jury as envisioned by our founding fathers.
Give the FIJA site a thorough reading. It ought to be mandatory grade-school curriculum.
Please somebody mod this guy up. He's actually on topic and informative.
Moderators, the topic is "Replacing a Thinkpad", NOT boycotting China, not atrocities committed by various nations, and certainly not the Iraq War or Saddam Hussein. These are all good topics.
They are not the topic of this thread.
I was excited to read here about replacing a Thinkpad. I did not click on "Replacing a Thinkpad" to read about human rights violations or the erosion of the US constitution.
This is not DIGG. There is a -1 Off Topic mod. Please use it. Or at least don't mod stuff up that is so totally off topic while Mr. Plug here sits at a (Score:2) for talking about.. wait for it....
laptops!
Thank you.
(Now I'll sit and watch as I get modded Off Topic. Oh the irony.)
Film at 11.
Cool government indeed.
>If you're going to pirate, don't do it for profit. I can't support piracy for profit, sorry.
Is anyone else picturing Blackbeard and Captain Hook standing in line at the IRS with their 501(c) forms in hand, discussing their tax exempt status?
"Arrrr, we be a powerful Recreational Club we be!"
- "Avast ye lowly deckswabber, we make a fine Fraternal Beneficiary Society we do!"
"So it be a life of Charitable Givin' for ye?"
- "Aye! Donate me hearties, Yo ho!"
"Well blimey, if I don't stuff that in me canon and fire it."
> When is this pirate stuff going to be over and done with?
Tomorrow.
While I agree with you in an "ideal world" kind of way, I automatically assume you're young and single and have a comfortable income working reasonable hours, without many obligations in life.
Why?
Because most of us don't have time to watch a lot of full length feature films without breaks. If we owned a full season on DVD, we'd have to hit the pause button 3 times per episode anyway. We iron our clothes and cook during commercials, we answer the phone. We sit with our laptops and answer email while maybe glancing at Mythbusters. We pack lunches, open mail, arrange schedules, write thank you notes, replace light bulbs, take out the trash, we clean our bathrooms(note to bachelors!), run out for milk, feed the dog, let the dog out, let the dog in, answer the phone again.... We clean up after our kids who will wake up and need a drink any minute.
And then finally, we sigh with relief when we get 25 minutes to veg out in front of the last half of whatever the heck is on because we don't really care. Our eyes are glazed over before we even reach the couch.
A 20+ hour long commercial-free movie sounds like a sick joke to anyone with family and a lawn to mow. Enjoy this time in your life. It won't come again for a long time.
I think he'd receive a lot more meaningful and helpful comments if he had placed his problem in context.
Such as:
- Numerically solving the wave functions describing the taut jiggle of Natalie Portman's bum.
- Mapping out the three dimensional wave constructs of that odd humming in your basement.
- Discovering the finite elements of romantic pursuit and the finite differences between romantic pursuit and stalking.
You know, when in Rome...
Interesting.. there are 2 posts here calling the major networks racist in favor of whites...
The 2000 Census states that 12.9 percent of the population is "Black or African American"
I'd like to see some hard statistics for broadcasting, but it seems that more than 12.9% of the faces seen on the major networks are ""Black or African American".
Comparing programming on all channels, according to the Census 22.9% of the population is non-white. But taking TV programming as a whole, a visiting alien might get the impression that about 35 or 40% of our population was non-white. It doesn't take much channel surfing to see that a good deal more than 1 in 5 people are non-white.
Racism in any form is disgusting and sad. It's not a word to throw around lightly. Statistically speaking, I think "the TV" (as Homer would say) does a pretty good job in favor of minorites. You just don't see it when watching your favorite sit-coms, as they're usually pretty targeted to a specific cultural audience.
Having a 2 year-old is like having a visiting alien sometimes... the things they say can get you thinking about all kinds of things.
[VOICEMAIL]
"Um. Hi. Yeah. How are you? I just wanted to call to touch base and see how you were doing. Give me a call when you get a chance. Talk to you soon. Buy."
[Me]
ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz
[EMAIL]
Hey, whats up?
Email wins.
If there ever comes a time when I only have one arm, please don't send me (back) into battle.
Thanks so much.
A Super Soldier should have all his/her parts still attached. The other path leads to the Dark Side.
Thanks again.
>Well, you've more or less have put on a major concern of *ALL* smartphones. Whether it runs OS X (iPhone), Windows Mobile, Linux, Symbian, RIM OS (Blackberry) - they all meet the same criteria. Most people will install a random binary on their smartphone if it does something "interesting", regardless of what it runs.
Whatever. You're going to be so jealous that my phone has Comet Cursor and Weather Bug on it.
Damn. That was pretty fascinating. The bottom line is that too much of any one thing isn't good for you. Even water.
And... we're still dealing with an eating problem. Not a weight problem.
How about if we replace "spinach, nuts, and berries" with "mixed leafy greens & broccoli, 1 cup beans, and 1 cup fruit" ?
And a multi-vitamin with "Citri-Cal" the really easy to absorb calcium.
Do we have our million dollar diet plan yet?
There are no such things as weight problems. Only eating problems.
Try a diet of only water, spinach, berries, nuts, and vitamins. Limit the nuts and berries to a cup each per day.
Fill up the rest of the way on as much spinach as you like.
Don't cheat.
You'll quickly see what I mean.
The movie industry will begin charging consumers to watch trailers.
Pricing info has yet to be released, but it is expected that trailers made available on the internet will be cheaper and probably different than the Pay-per-View trailers made available for television.
Or follow the story here, complete with links to the source articles at Reuters, AP, etc.
A prequel? How about some continuity and closure?
X-files is to blame for my refusal to watch long story arc shows anymore, Lost, Heroes, etc.
A good story arc doesn't just fizzle away, but you can bet your TV that's what will happen. It gets to the point that it's obvious the writers are just making things up from week to week just to string the viewers along. The plot starts to look like swiss cheese, and then it just melts away.
I was hooked on Chris Carter's long running "mythology". Talk about getting snookered.
I'm not sure how the Japanese military works, and it's been a long time since I was 18, but I do remember thinking that if I'm old enough to be sent into combat, then I'm damn sure old enough to vote.
If we can trust 18 year olds with a ballet, a motorcycle, a firearm, or to drive a tank in Iraq, it sounds like pure hypocrisy to deny them a beer.
I'm sure Japan has its fair share of hypocrisy.
The British have been working on this for years!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqhlQfXUk7w
It's nice to see the Runbot "has been built by scientists co-operating across Europe".
Well ALL play might be stretching it.
I don't learn anything when I spank the monkey.
But when I first started spanking him I learned quite a bit!
So I think "root of play" is more accurate than "all play". But good point, and your reference sounds intriguing.
...Bad monkey! Bad bad!
As the father of a 2 year-old I can assure you that you learned many things from Sesame Street. My boy learns tons of things from Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers. From sharing and telling the truth to letters and manners etc etc etc. He's an absolute sponge. Heck he even learned about getting lost from Finding Nemo. When we go out he does NOT want to get lost like Nemo. And NO of course he doesn't learn those things just from the TV. But the day I scolded him about something and he told me he was mad at me and going to run away to Nana's house I knew for SURE he was learning things on TV. He's freakin 2! Somebody had run away on Mr. Rogers, one of the Make-Believe puppets. Granted, TV is the last resort for things educational, but when it does get turned on, he's learning something.
>I don't remember learning anything from things like Sesame Street
How many things at all can you remember from when you were 2? 3? I don't remember learning to read. Heck I don't remember learning to type either. I remember when I couldn't do either. But the learning part..it happens so insidiously that it's just not a memorable event.
As someone who is working on their PhD you should know that the entire concept of play is based on learning. Just look at animals playing. Now look at kids playing. They are learning everything from refined motor skills to problem solving to empathy, character judgement, following directions, cause & effect, etc etc etc etc.
Learning is the root of all play. Just ask a kitty. Hence, good games are educational whether they mean to be or not.
The important question is this: How can we make good games more educational? Because currently, we suck at it.
An interesting example, one of my gamer buddies lives in Quebec. He spoke no English but now attributes his decent mastery of English to an FPS game! He learned it in game, on the forums, on TeamSpeak, etc etc. He taught himself English to get along in an English Language game. And I was there for most of the process and can vouch for it.
Anybody know a great game with a predominantly Spanish speaking or Mandarin speaking community? I'm in!
Now how can we better promote game learning by design?
My real name is not Strange Ranger.
Why should I have to reveal my real number when placing a call?
Yes I know this is a forum and calls are more "personal".
But sometimes I call companies. Or heck maybe city hall.
Where does the tracking and ID'ing end?
Lunar lander
Where's my prize?
Your comment is Insightful but seems a bit dramatic. We don't need Skynet to rob us of some of our humanity, or as some will argue, to change what it means to be human.
On the other hand, I don't think "mechanization" is that important in the grand scheme of things. It's "connectedness" that is changing what it means to be human.
Try this thought experiment: Think of any good movie set any time 15 years ago or more. Say The Godfather, The Graduate, heck even Ghostbusters (since I seem to be stuck on movies starting with 'G' ), it doesn't matter. You could add amazing materials science, advanced robotics, intelligent toasters, whatever, most mechanization won't change the movie that much. Want to completely ruin the movie? Give everybody in it a cell phone.
IMO nothing has changed what it means to be human more than our new degree of connectedness. If you read some good near-future fiction (Rainbow's End and Diamond Age obviously come to mind), the authors seem to agree.
Changes in how we communicate and how we connect with each other are far more fundamental to our humanity than any new gadgetry or method of getting work done.
Mechanization is an outdated bogeyman.
Will encouraging consumer virtualization result in a major uptick in piracy?
No way. I told my mom and my aunt not to trade those VMs and they listen to me.
I don't want to see them in jail.