I had the same experience from the other side. When I tried to install Windows 98 on my Linux box, the fdisk rewrote my partition table in the exact same way (i.e., with extended and primary partitions overlapping). Screwed everything up. From now on, I'll use cfdisk in linux, and then install windows.
With cables, connecting n devices together means n^2 different cables.
With cables, one device can act as a hub (e.g., your PC) and then the number of cables is reduced to n-1. And just for the sake of exactness, connecting everything to everything else is slightly less than n^2: (n^2 - n) / 2, which at very high numbers works out be nearly the same as (n^2)/2, but for numbers in the 2-8 range (i.e., the number of devices you might want on a ``PAN''), the difference is quite large.
2 devices: n^2 = 4 (n^2-n)/2 = 1
3 devices: n^2 = 9 (n^2-n)/2 = 3
4 devices: n^2 = 16 (n^2-n)/2 = 6
5 devices: n^2 = 25 (n^2-n)/2 = 10
6 devices: n^2 = 36 (n^2-n)/2 = 15
7 devices: n^2 = 49 (n^2-n)/2 = 21
8 devoces: n^2 = 64 (n^2-n)/2 = 28
So, you've exagerated on the cable problem a little, since (a) you normally don't want to connect every device to every other device and (b) you need significantly less than n^2 to do so, even if that is your aim.
Opening my eyes would do the trick. And from that point I'd know if I were the original, or the copy.
That's exactly my point. That after the copying took place the two consciousness can diverge, but at the instant of the copying, they are equivalent. The fact you say you'd "know if [you] were... the copy" suggest that the copy would be in that same state before it opened its eyes. And if the event took place while you were unconscious, neither you nor the copy would have any way of knowing which was which. You could both be equally convinced of your orignality.
Are you a native speaker of English? This sentence isn't confusing at all! You've divided it up wrong, that's all. "chicken-and-egg-like" is used here as an adverb, modifying depend. The phrase "whether a few companies escape being annoying and actually get people interested in what they have to offer" is a good clause. It's used here as the object of the preposition "on."
Grammatically, this sentence is absolutely fine. Learn some grammar before you criticize that of others.
At the moment of the copy, the consciousness in both the "original" and the "copy" are both exactly the same. I beleive strongly in the possibility of divergence after the moment of copying, but there really is no way to differentiate between the original and the copy, unless you could, for example, uniquely identify electrons or such. But then you'd be back to a problem of physical --- rather than functional --- identity.
Physical identity is such a limited concept of identity. Even if you're not a dualist, identity can be defined in a functualist way; for example, my identity could be defined as a certain configuration of matter and energy (or better, a large set of possible configurations of matter and energy). Any configuration of matter an energy suitable to be in that set would be functionally equivalent to me.
Just as many different tissue-damage-sensing devices are functionally equivalent (and can therefore all be called "pain"), different functionally equivalent replicas of myself can all be called "me."
See, for example:
Owen, Flanagan. (1992). Consciousness reconsidered. The MIT Press.
Clark, Andy. (1997). Being there : putting brain, body, and world together again. The MIT Press.
Heil, John. (1998). Philosophy of Mind. London, New York: Routledge.
A window manager is a very specific piece of software that takes care of the little tasks we often take for granted. It draws the frames on windows, lets us move the windows around, change their sizes, etc. It decides what should happen when we tell a window to maximize or minimize, or what not. It provides support changing between virtual desktops, theming window title-bars, and lots of other little things.
A desktop environment, on the other hand, is a group of applications (the term is used loosely here) that are designed to work together, presumably written around a single set of widgets and libraries. A desktop environment may or may not include a window manager. KDE includes KWM, and Gnome favors Sawfish, but works very well with several other window managers, such as IceWM and Windowmaker.
Cheers,
Ben Keil (.sig not yet publically released)
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I had the same experience from the other side. When I tried to install Windows 98 on my Linux box, the fdisk rewrote my partition table in the exact same way (i.e., with extended and primary partitions overlapping). Screwed everything up. From now on, I'll use cfdisk in linux, and then install windows.
With cables, one device can act as a hub (e.g., your PC) and then the number of cables is reduced to n-1. And just for the sake of exactness, connecting everything to everything else is slightly less than n^2: (n^2 - n) / 2, which at very high numbers works out be nearly the same as (n^2)/2, but for numbers in the 2-8 range (i.e., the number of devices you might want on a ``PAN''), the difference is quite large.
So, you've exagerated on the cable problem a little, since (a) you normally don't want to connect every device to every other device and (b) you need significantly less than n^2 to do so, even if that is your aim.
That's exactly my point. That after the copying took place the two consciousness can diverge, but at the instant of the copying, they are equivalent. The fact you say you'd "know if [you] were ... the copy" suggest that the copy would be in that same state before it opened its eyes. And if the event took place while you were unconscious, neither you nor the copy would have any way of knowing which was which. You could both be equally convinced of your orignality.
Grammatically, this sentence is absolutely fine. Learn some grammar before you criticize that of others.
At the moment of the copy, the consciousness in both the "original" and the "copy" are both exactly the same. I beleive strongly in the possibility of divergence after the moment of copying, but there really is no way to differentiate between the original and the copy, unless you could, for example, uniquely identify electrons or such. But then you'd be back to a problem of physical --- rather than functional --- identity.
Correction on that bibliography....
The first item should have been:
Flanagan, Owen. (1992). Consciousness reconsidered. The MIT Press.
Physical identity is such a limited concept of identity. Even if you're not a dualist, identity can be defined in a functualist way; for example, my identity could be defined as a certain configuration of matter and energy (or better, a large set of possible configurations of matter and energy). Any configuration of matter an energy suitable to be in that set would be functionally equivalent to me.
Just as many different tissue-damage-sensing devices are functionally equivalent (and can therefore all be called "pain"), different functionally equivalent replicas of myself can all be called "me."
See, for example:
Owen, Flanagan. (1992). Consciousness reconsidered. The MIT Press.
Clark, Andy. (1997). Being there : putting brain, body, and world together again. The MIT Press.
Heil, John. (1998). Philosophy of Mind. London, New York: Routledge.
A window manager is a very specific piece of software that takes care of the little tasks we often take for granted. It draws the frames on windows, lets us move the windows around, change their sizes, etc. It decides what should happen when we tell a window to maximize or minimize, or what not. It provides support changing between virtual desktops, theming window title-bars, and lots of other little things.
A desktop environment, on the other hand, is a group of applications (the term is used loosely here) that are designed to work together, presumably written around a single set of widgets and libraries. A desktop environment may or may not include a window manager. KDE includes KWM, and Gnome favors Sawfish, but works very well with several other window managers, such as IceWM and Windowmaker.
Cheers,
Ben Keil (.sig not yet publically released)