Um, no, they didn't find bacteria on Mars. They found a metorite of Martian origion that contained things that some people thought looked life bacteria. IIRC, the debate over whether it was life or not went on for a while and then people pretty much forgot about it. I don't think the general consensus was that it was life. At best, it is still up in the air.
O come on. I don't like the existance of organized religion very much, but in the short term, they do more good than harm, (i.e. salvation army, AA, etc.) even if in the long run they impede the development of humanity.
He doesn't actually think that is has anything to do with Microsoft, he is just trying to divert the conversation into something geeks are more familiar with.
Yes, hmmmm. I got into an interesting discussion with a strongly religious friend of mine a while back on this sort of topic. I asked if bacteria had souls, he said no. Fish? no. Monkeys? no. A human fetus? yes. An embryo? yes. A fertalized egg? yes. An unfertalized egg? no. Sperm? no. An egg with a sperm in it but without the DNA combined yet? no. So I said "So the creation of a soul can be traced to the time when the two sets of genes combine?" and he said, "I guess so." And so I asked "well, what about when they are half way together? is there a soul then? Is there a half soul? What if i combined the DNA in a highly controlled enviornment and was able to hold them in this state?" He pretty much had to admit (for the first time ever, and we argue about this sort of thing a lot) that he really didn't know.
I don't think that I actually upset his views any, but it is interesting that even a highly religious and well read person like him could be confused by this fairly simple matter.
I think this should be brought out: "However, when they can create life and then tell me exactly what choices this creature will make during its life...then they'll be playing god."
Essantially, he is saying that being/playing God is not about creating, but about knowing. I'd like to hear some responses to this. Being an atheist myself, I can't really say.
Responding directly: Unfortunatly for your argument, if we do create AI, then presumably we will have all the sourse code for it and will be able to predict its actions precisely. All you need is a slightly faster computer to tell you what the slightly slower one is about to think. (Naturally, for analog life, this is not true.)
So many people have tried this argument and i finnally have to respond. The difference is that these scientist are creating a new kinda of life, probably completely different from any other life on Earth. When you reproduce, all you are doing is creating another human, which is agruably just a detached extention of yourself. When you fertalize an egg, you are merging one cell with another, no creation there, just a remixing. the fact that this cell divides and becomes independant is irrelevant. The point is that it is not new, just an addition.
Heil Trejus! The trick of course, is to convince them (religious people) NOW that they are wrong. Appealing to hindsight won't work. It doesn't help us if 400 years from now, people look back and say "Yeah, the scientists were right again and now the major world religions retroactivly support them."
(Why do I always find myself responing negitavly to people that I agree with?)
you, you're, CAPS, commas, line breaks. Your points may be good, but it is hard to tell because i can barely read them.
As to the content: I support this experiment, but...
I don't really think we will have true AI within 20 years. We may have the computing power by then, but remember that humans have to program them to be intelligent and we don't even understand what makes us intelligent in the first place.
If we cure cancer as a result of this creation, then people who were against it will still get the treatment. Maybe you think that it would be appropriatly poetic if they didn't, but the fact is that they will anyway.
Your argument that we should feel free to create life is based on the assumption that God exists. If God doesn't exist, then our only fear is creating a harmful lifeform (unlikely at best). If God does exist, then I don't think that the same rules would apply to him and us. Any intelligent life we might create would be on the same "power level" as us. On the other hand, if God exists, he is on a much higher "power level." In other words, the situations are not equivalent.
(I am simply responding to your argument, I support the experiment)
We would have no immunity to them. They would have no idea (so to speak) how to hurt us.
For them to hurt us would be like a random fish disease to hurt us, but much much harder, because instead of being specialized for the wrong life form, it is not specialized for any life form.
(I hate discussion about moderation, but THIS IS NOT A TROLL) Maybe you could expand on your thoughts a little rather than just saying what lots of people are thinking anyway.
"There is more tree coverage now then there was in 1900, due to the fact that much less land is now in farming use. Those stone walls that run thru the woods were put there by farmers clearing land for planting, not by your "god"."
(This is not flamebait, but i hate discussions about moderation.) He was not trying to push any views on anyone. He was just saying (i think) that if one group of people do something that is against another person's religion, that doesnt mean that they shouldn't do it. In daily life, we all violate religious rules of religions that we don't believe in. If we hesitate before every action to ask whether it agrees with the views of all religious groups then we would never get anything done.
What you said makes no sence, there is a big difference between creating life and ending it. I am not against this experiment, but your argument is completely invalid.
Well, i can't verify your claim about new viruses being created already, not being an expert in this area, but i do know that most bio books list the viruses as being not-alive. I think the rational for this is that viruses (virii?) do not contain the materials necessary for reproduction, rather, they have to use parts of other life forms to reproduce. A real biologist should back me up on this, however.
Sorry, I am a NES kinda person. What are those tiny little gameboy looking things that say Dreamcast? I thought that Dreamcast was like a next gen playstation.
Dear Sir or Madam, We of the slashdot community would like to know what you mean by the terms "pyramid scheme" and "signature's" (sic). If you are referring to sigs, there is a handy option in your user preferneces to turn them off. I haven't seen any for ages.
Sincerely, Me
PS. I always have thought that a moderation option should be "wrong" (as in factually incorrect).
Slashdot Mirror
Um, no, they didn't find bacteria on Mars. They found a metorite of Martian origion that contained things that some people thought looked life bacteria. IIRC, the debate over whether it was life or not went on for a while and then people pretty much forgot about it. I don't think the general consensus was that it was life. At best, it is still up in the air.
How exactly do you plan to track an Anonymous Coward?
O come on. I don't like the existance of organized religion very much, but in the short term, they do more good than harm, (i.e. salvation army, AA, etc.) even if in the long run they impede the development of humanity.
Ditto. No one cares that you beat him, Mr Signal 11. Comments were made for discussion, debate and enlightenment, not karma and first posts.
Agreed. I would have thought that he would stop now that his karma is not publically viewable. At least good sence prevailed and this change was made.
He doesn't actually think that is has anything to do with Microsoft, he is just trying to divert the conversation into something geeks are more familiar with.
"single celled organism won't have a soul"
Yes, hmmmm. I got into an interesting discussion with a strongly religious friend of mine a while back on this sort of topic.
I asked if bacteria had souls, he said no. Fish? no. Monkeys? no. A human fetus? yes. An embryo? yes. A fertalized egg? yes. An unfertalized egg? no. Sperm? no. An egg with a sperm in it but without the DNA combined yet? no.
So I said "So the creation of a soul can be traced to the time when the two sets of genes combine?" and he said, "I guess so." And so I asked "well, what about when they are half way together? is there a soul then? Is there a half soul? What if i combined the DNA in a highly controlled enviornment and was able to hold them in this state?" He pretty much had to admit (for the first time ever, and we argue about this sort of thing a lot) that he really didn't know.
I don't think that I actually upset his views any, but it is interesting that even a highly religious and well read person like him could be confused by this fairly simple matter.
I think this should be brought out:
"However, when they can create life and then tell me exactly what choices this creature will make during its life...then they'll be playing god."
Essantially, he is saying that being/playing God is not about creating, but about knowing. I'd like to hear some responses to this. Being an atheist myself, I can't really say.
Responding directly:
Unfortunatly for your argument, if we do create AI, then presumably we will have all the sourse code for it and will be able to predict its actions precisely. All you need is a slightly faster computer to tell you what the slightly slower one is about to think. (Naturally, for analog life, this is not true.)
So many people have tried this argument and i finnally have to respond. The difference is that these scientist are creating a new kinda of life, probably completely different from any other life on Earth. When you reproduce, all you are doing is creating another human, which is agruably just a detached extention of yourself. When you fertalize an egg, you are merging one cell with another, no creation there, just a remixing. the fact that this cell divides and becomes independant is irrelevant. The point is that it is not new, just an addition.
What is the reference?
Heil Trejus!
The trick of course, is to convince them (religious people) NOW that they are wrong. Appealing to hindsight won't work. It doesn't help us if 400 years from now, people look back and say "Yeah, the scientists were right again and now the major world religions retroactivly support them."
(Why do I always find myself responing negitavly to people that I agree with?)
you, you're, CAPS, commas, line breaks. Your points may be good, but it is hard to tell because i can barely read them.
As to the content:
I support this experiment, but...
I don't really think we will have true AI within 20 years. We may have the computing power by then, but remember that humans have to program them to be intelligent and we don't even understand what makes us intelligent in the first place.
If we cure cancer as a result of this creation, then people who were against it will still get the treatment. Maybe you think that it would be appropriatly poetic if they didn't, but the fact is that they will anyway.
And if He did it, why shouldn't we?
Your argument that we should feel free to create life is based on the assumption that God exists.
If God doesn't exist, then our only fear is creating a harmful lifeform (unlikely at best).
If God does exist, then I don't think that the same rules would apply to him and us. Any intelligent life we might create would be on the same "power level" as us. On the other hand, if God exists, he is on a much higher "power level." In other words, the situations are not equivalent.
(I am simply responding to your argument, I support the experiment)
Assuming that it is a virus that they create:
We would have no immunity to them.
They would have no idea (so to speak) how to hurt us.
For them to hurt us would be like a random fish disease to hurt us, but much much harder, because instead of being specialized for the wrong life form, it is not specialized for any life form.
"ruining out lives" huh?
(I hate discussion about moderation, but THIS IS NOT A TROLL)
Maybe you could expand on your thoughts a little rather than just saying what lots of people are thinking anyway.
"There is more tree coverage now then there was in 1900, due to the fact that much less land is now in farming use. Those stone walls that run thru the woods were put there by farmers clearing land for planting, not by your "god"."
No, wrong. Or misleading, at the very best http://www.greenpeace.org/~forests/
(This is not flamebait, but i hate discussions about moderation.)
He was not trying to push any views on anyone. He was just saying (i think) that if one group of people do something that is against another person's religion, that doesnt mean that they shouldn't do it. In daily life, we all violate religious rules of religions that we don't believe in. If we hesitate before every action to ask whether it agrees with the views of all religious groups then we would never get anything done.
What you said makes no sence, there is a big difference between creating life and ending it. I am not against this experiment, but your argument is completely invalid.
Well, i can't verify your claim about new viruses being created already, not being an expert in this area, but i do know that most bio books list the viruses as being not-alive.
I think the rational for this is that viruses (virii?) do not contain the materials necessary for reproduction, rather, they have to use parts of other life forms to reproduce.
A real biologist should back me up on this, however.
Someone should take these pseudo-transcripts and run them thru babelfish. Think of the gibberish level we could achive!
The vampire Slayer.
Mind you, I didnt know this until I did a web search for her.
Is f**k rich? or fuck for that matter?
Sorry, I am a NES kinda person. What are those tiny little gameboy looking things that say Dreamcast? I thought that Dreamcast was like a next gen playstation.
Dear Sir or Madam,
We of the slashdot community would like to know what you mean by the terms "pyramid scheme" and "signature's" (sic). If you are referring to sigs, there is a handy option in your user preferneces to turn them off. I haven't seen any for ages.
Sincerely,
Me
PS. I always have thought that a moderation option should be "wrong" (as in factually incorrect).