"However, we're now studying the fruits of his insights, and it takes a few years of graduate school to become an expert in even a small field. If there is a next Einstein,..."
Einstien was a "big picture" type of guy, details were something he "looked up" to confirm the picture.
His credo and that fact that his humanity was revealed in the way he tried to live by it. This is what people loved and respected. Newton was at least an equally great genius but unfortunately he was also an arsehole, his work (like Einstein's), is simply admired as an acedemic artifact.
I have to agree that this article is terrible. It had an interesting subject, there is a formula for leg motion (any number) based on pressure. The article screwed-up badly on lots of details. Eg: fish moves water -> lake goes up. No, fish moves water, period!
"If such methods are better, why has no animal evolved them?"
If wheels are "better" why doesn't everyone wear rollerskates instead of shoes?
Wheels and screws are human inventions and therefore are a result of evolution. There seems to be no reason to assume it is even possible to create large scale living wheels from protien.
Rotary motion: Religious fanatics often claim the rotary motion seen in the tails of some micobes is conclusive proof for their drivel.
I hate to break this to you but most animals (including fish and humans) are shaped like donuts (tube surrounded by the organisim). This is not the only "body plan", there are ~30 others still around today, (eg: Jellyfish have only one orifice). All body plans that have ever existed hail back to (or before) the Cambrian explosion
"The idea that we are not all knowing and will not know all is pretty painful to accept"
As the other poster pointed out science does not pove things, maths does within the confines of it's own axioms. You may be depressed to hear that maths has shown that the Universe is "unkowable".
Q2: Science is very ceratain about the fact we are all made from "star stuff", it is also very ceratin that the "star stuff" self orgainsed sufficiently to discuss philosophy. One day we may work out the complete sequence of steps from hydrogen to human but I doubt if it would be much use by itself. We will never know where or how often life has arisen in the Universe but the question answer is only useful as historical triva.
Q1: Now where did the hydrogen for the stars come from, "big bang" is the leading contender. Big bang is reasonably strong because of it's predictive power, I have not yet heard anyone propose a practical experiment to test string theory, for now it's just a mathematical curiosity.
Like God, the big bang "just is". However the big bang does a lot less moralising and there is always the possibility it can be explained with something deeper (infinite spacetime seems obvious but it cannot be "proven").
"The inherent danger in the ID ideas is that ID proponents somehow believe that because one their claims cannot be ultimately refuted (except by God), they somehow have the authority to declare the rest of science "bullshit"...."
Reply: "....I haven't yet seen any of them do that. Nor, for that matter, have I seen a Creationist do that. If you have a reference or two, that would be helpful."
From a western perspective religion and science were one and the same up until the scientific revolution. The modern idea of scientists in a labratory looking for cancer cures (or whatever) is as recent as Edison. A very large portion of the planets population still belives religious aurthority trumps all other authority in daily life.
"without direct observation, all statements about our past are no more than inference, therefore definitely ruling invisible pink unicorns...out of the question, however counterintuitive that may be, is not reasonable."
Following that argument to it's logical conclusion ends up showing that science is based on the FAITH that the real world exists seperate from my own thought processes. Denying faith in the real world would cause problems, if I told the therapist in my halucinations that they don't really exist then they will diagnose me as phycopathic and lock me into my padded cell halucination! They obviuos chaos that this type of thinking would cause is avoided by approximating "impossible" to "very improbable", eg: Given the evidence, it is beyond reasonable doubt to say pink-unicorns are a myth.
"what he has told me is off the record and unquotable, I can't give his name (I wish I could). He admits to me...."
Translation: I have special secret knowlage...
"It really bugs me, actually, that these "scientists" we so admire..."
Translation: You can't trust scientists, they don't have a clue what they are doing...
"Is oil possibly a renewable resource..."
Translation: Repeat the oil industries discredited FUD...
"I believe we DO need to carry out research...just as long as I don't pay for it involuntarily and as long as no one makes laws and restrictions based on non-facts."
Translation: Pay lip service to science while cutting of funding and ignoring it's findings.
"Transferbangle" - Is this something from one of those "jolly" Simpon's episodes, "eh Gov'ner"?...maybe we could ask Arnie, IIRC he's from Austri-alia?/sarcasam
Disclaimer: I have lived in Oz for 42yrs and been in IT for ~20. This is the place that spawned Rupert Murdoch, naturally I thought "product placement, so I googled for "Transferbangle". The only hits I get lead back to Arstechnica?
You have a good point about demographics, I shall contemplate my lack of comprehension and ignorance about Pew..........doh!
If the Pew poeple have an adgenda I imagine they will keep the demographics until they find the "right" question for the answer.
For example, they would probably be adverse to publishing how popular porn really is.
"I think anyone who settles with RIAA, should demand 100% of the settlement goes to the artists, and NOT ONE CENT
goes to RIAA or the lawyers, and that you want proof with zero cost."
Ever faced a judge? They don't take too kindly to the other people demanding things in their court.
The kid got people to throw money at him with an idea NOBODY else thought of and all you can do is whine about how he is not a genius, can barely drive and basically doesn't deserve it because it was "easy" money. What a fucking wet blanket, in ten years you will probably be working for him.
"I'm interested in the higher moments, I don't give a damn about the mean. Sorry that wasn't clear."
Clear now, but impossible from the data, even a bit nonsensical.
The survey asked a sample of people yes/no type questions, X people say Yes, Y% of them are female. How can that "vary" in a single sample, to get what you want they would need to take multiple samples and ask the same yes/no questions. All that extra effort would only serve to make the figure you are "not interested in" more accurate. I'm sure they would be delighted to do that for a large fee.
Even if you do give up smoking herbs they won't forget you once did and you still won't qualify. In fact according to statistics over half the adult population would not qualify. Besides how would it look if the FBI allow "the enemy" in the "war on drugs" to start screwing with their computers.
Insightfull, wtf, as the other poster suggests, go and look at the study it contains the distributions you are guessing about. Also I'm not sure why you are interested if you don't "give a damm".
"Polls comparing the average behaviour of men and women are boring and useless. Frankly, who gives a damn what the differences between the average man and average woman is?"
No, Viva-la-differance!
(apologies to any one who can spell in either french or english)
"Neat ideas often work, much like placing the sun in the center of the solar system got rid of extra corrections for "backwards" movement of the planets."
Yes, I am placing the center of simulation within our individual skulls, you are saying that the Universe is centered on an external simulation. I think my argument (nicked from Plato) is neater in the sense that it gets "rid of extra corrections".
"If you get talking about potential universes, well, each of those has the same likelyhood of happening. If there are an infinite amount of "universes" (either spatial or throughout "time") every potential universe will/has/does exist infinite times."
This is more logical than extra layers of existance, after all the edges of my visable universe are unique to me and I have no reason to suspect that the universe does not go on forever. Also (to the other post) "just is" does not imply random, there may be rules that "just are" underlying the randomness. But it need not be that way, "laws of nature" may just be the collection of emergent properties coming from pure randomness, refer to the "mindless intelligence" of an ants nest.
We are part of the Universe and what I percive is my simulated universe, the three dimentional space around me is a simulation generated by me. Unfortunately this also leads to endless recursion as it can be said that I am really just an overly optomistic simulation of myself (thus the dissapointment when I use the mirror in the morning). The alternative to endless recursion is the replacement of free will with a inifinte number of simulated universes residing within a common infinite reality. Because we are part of the universe, it would seem that the universe is inherintely unknowable. An infinite unkowable Universe is more logical but could be seen as grim, I prefer to think of "free will" as an emergent property of life, it "just is", I cannot will what I will what I will what I will....there is not enough time!!!
Finding hidden parts of the Universe that we can all percive (eg:X-rays) expands our common understanding of it, finding extra philosophical layers just leads to more layers until an omni-potent being/thing/design/simulation "just is".
"The solution to the problem is always going to be the same with a computer in control. Slow down, and evade. There will never be a situation where the computer decides to floor it and weave through the obstacles, that will never be allowed in the programming."
Using the approach in TFA, the solution to any partcular situation is generated statistically, the programmer cannot know what the outcome will be. Therefore testing to attain government approval of such sytems will also be statistical.
I would imagine that if this technology takes off, manafcturers will limit their liability for tecnological cock-ups the way they do now, ie: by conforming to mandated standards. When an accident occurs and the company can show it has followed all the rules, the company is off the hook. It then becomes the standards that are scutinised and changed, much the same way as the aviation industry is forced to constantly explain it's incident figures.
Things will go wrong and people will die (just ask any medico), people can only learn by their own or other people's mistakes, those who can't must be prevented from using "sharp objects". If regulations are used to broadcast methods of avoiding those mistakes and dish out punishment to those who willfully ignore the lessons, the industry as a whole will steadily improve. This approach is vividly demonstrated by the costs of large product recalls, not the least of which is loss of public trust. If the company doesn't fess up and do everything they can to rectify the situation then they face both an outraged public and some serious jail time.
Note: The above is a description of a transparent engineering ideal that is more often than not perverted by politics and ethically blind accounting practices. Science is about refining and expanding knowlage, ENGINEERING is about refining and expanding methods for the safe utilisation of that knowlage. In the end the public will determine what is "safe", witness Chernobal's impact on reactor investment and the continuing public reluctance to revist reactors as an alternative to fossil fuels.
Software practices often seem to be part science, part engineering, but mainly goat entrails. Software is not "nuts and bolts", the industry is something brand new to civil engineering but it will eventually be absorbed by the "procedure".
Like electricity 100yrs before, the software industry has and will continue to make mistakes with fatal consequences. The question is, can it learn from them or are we creating anthother "threat to the public" such as some of those involved in the oil, tabbacco, pharmecutical, chemical, minning, agricultural,,,, in fact ALL other industries that have otherwise significant benifits to the public.
The problem with Matrix type ideas is that they suffer from the same recursive problems as the omni-potent creator. Somewhere in the various levels you need to say something "just is", (eg: The Christian God proclaimed "I am"). I like the Matrix type ideas and they make great sci-fi but isn't it more elegant to cut out all the middlemen and conclude that this Universe "just is".
Distancing the philosophical question of "why" by adding undetectable layers of reality may bring comfort to billions but it really only complicates the question.
All I'm saying is alot of people would not know what Photoshop was, even less would know what GIMP is all about. Off course being instantly recognisable does not mean you are the best, just ask Pepsi.
Slashdot Mirror
"However, we're now studying the fruits of his insights, and it takes a few years of graduate school to become an expert in even a small field. If there is a next Einstein,..."
Einstien was a "big picture" type of guy, details were something he "looked up" to confirm the picture.
His credo and that fact that his humanity was revealed in the way he tried to live by it. This is what people loved and respected. Newton was at least an equally great genius but unfortunately he was also an arsehole, his work (like Einstein's), is simply admired as an acedemic artifact.
I have to agree that this article is terrible. It had an interesting subject, there is a formula for leg motion (any number) based on pressure. The article screwed-up badly on lots of details. Eg: fish moves water -> lake goes up. No, fish moves water, period!
"If such methods are better, why has no animal evolved them?"
If wheels are "better" why doesn't everyone wear rollerskates instead of shoes?
Wheels and screws are human inventions and therefore are a result of evolution. There seems to be no reason to assume it is even possible to create large scale living wheels from protien.
Rotary motion: Religious fanatics often claim the rotary motion seen in the tails of some micobes is conclusive proof for their drivel.
"Or maybe a fish shaped like a donut?"
I hate to break this to you but most animals (including fish and humans) are shaped like donuts (tube surrounded by the organisim). This is not the only "body plan", there are ~30 others still around today, (eg: Jellyfish have only one orifice). All body plans that have ever existed hail back to (or before) the Cambrian explosion
Elephants don't run like other animals but thier top speed is still comprable to a champion sprinter.
"The idea that we are not all knowing and will not know all is pretty painful to accept"
As the other poster pointed out science does not pove things, maths does within the confines of it's own axioms. You may be depressed to hear that maths has shown that the Universe is "unkowable".
Q2: Science is very ceratain about the fact we are all made from "star stuff", it is also very ceratin that the "star stuff" self orgainsed sufficiently to discuss philosophy. One day we may work out the complete sequence of steps from hydrogen to human but I doubt if it would be much use by itself. We will never know where or how often life has arisen in the Universe but the question answer is only useful as historical triva.
Q1: Now where did the hydrogen for the stars come from, "big bang" is the leading contender. Big bang is reasonably strong because of it's predictive power, I have not yet heard anyone propose a practical experiment to test string theory, for now it's just a mathematical curiosity.
Like God, the big bang "just is". However the big bang does a lot less moralising and there is always the possibility it can be explained with something deeper (infinite spacetime seems obvious but it cannot be "proven").
"The inherent danger in the ID ideas is that ID proponents somehow believe that because one their claims cannot be ultimately refuted (except by God), they somehow have the authority to declare the rest of science "bullshit"...."
Reply: "....I haven't yet seen any of them do that. Nor, for that matter, have I seen a Creationist do that. If you have a reference or two, that would be helpful."
Religiously inspired arrogance has become a little more subtle since they stopped burning witches, nowadays they do things like using school boards to change the definition of science.
From a western perspective religion and science were one and the same up until the scientific revolution. The modern idea of scientists in a labratory looking for cancer cures (or whatever) is as recent as Edison. A very large portion of the planets population still belives religious aurthority trumps all other authority in daily life.
"without direct observation, all statements about our past are no more than inference, therefore definitely ruling invisible pink unicorns...out of the question, however counterintuitive that may be, is not reasonable."
Following that argument to it's logical conclusion ends up showing that science is based on the FAITH that the real world exists seperate from my own thought processes. Denying faith in the real world would cause problems, if I told the therapist in my halucinations that they don't really exist then they will diagnose me as phycopathic and lock me into my padded cell halucination! They obviuos chaos that this type of thinking would cause is avoided by approximating "impossible" to "very improbable", eg: Given the evidence, it is beyond reasonable doubt to say pink-unicorns are a myth.
However, pigs do fly!
Thanks for clearing that up. Now run along and proof read the rest of the site.
...and a yard is what you water.
"what he has told me is off the record and unquotable, I can't give his name (I wish I could). He admits to me ...."
Translation: I have special secret knowlage...
"It really bugs me, actually, that these "scientists" we so admire..."
Translation: You can't trust scientists, they don't have a clue what they are doing...
"Is oil possibly a renewable resource..."
Translation: Repeat the oil industries discredited FUD...
"I believe we DO need to carry out research...just as long as I don't pay for it involuntarily and as long as no one makes laws and restrictions based on non-facts."
Translation: Pay lip service to science while cutting of funding and ignoring it's findings.
By any chance, is your real name Michael Chriton?
"Transferbangle" - Is this something from one of those "jolly" Simpon's episodes, "eh Gov'ner"? ...maybe we could ask Arnie, IIRC he's from Austri-alia? /sarcasam
Disclaimer: I have lived in Oz for 42yrs and been in IT for ~20. This is the place that spawned Rupert Murdoch, naturally I thought "product placement, so I googled for "Transferbangle". The only hits I get lead back to Arstechnica?
You have a good point about demographics, I shall contemplate my lack of comprehension and ignorance about Pew..........doh!
If the Pew poeple have an adgenda I imagine they will keep the demographics until they find the "right" question for the answer. For example, they would probably be adverse to publishing how popular porn really is.
"I think anyone who settles with RIAA, should demand 100% of the settlement goes to the artists, and NOT ONE CENT goes to RIAA or the lawyers, and that you want proof with zero cost."
Ever faced a judge? They don't take too kindly to the other people demanding things in their court.
I'm not from the US, you guys have way too many acronyms for cops.
The kid got people to throw money at him with an idea NOBODY else thought of and all you can do is whine about how he is not a genius, can barely drive and basically doesn't deserve it because it was "easy" money. What a fucking wet blanket, in ten years you will probably be working for him.
"I'm interested in the higher moments, I don't give a damn about the mean. Sorry that wasn't clear."
Clear now, but impossible from the data, even a bit nonsensical.
The survey asked a sample of people yes/no type questions, X people say Yes, Y% of them are female. How can that "vary" in a single sample, to get what you want they would need to take multiple samples and ask the same yes/no questions. All that extra effort would only serve to make the figure you are "not interested in" more accurate. I'm sure they would be delighted to do that for a large fee.
Even if you do give up smoking herbs they won't forget you once did and you still won't qualify. In fact according to statistics over half the adult population would not qualify. Besides how would it look if the FBI allow "the enemy" in the "war on drugs" to start screwing with their computers.
Insightfull, wtf, as the other poster suggests, go and look at the study it contains the distributions you are guessing about. Also I'm not sure why you are interested if you don't "give a damm".
"Polls comparing the average behaviour of men and women are boring and useless. Frankly, who gives a damn what the differences between the average man and average woman is?"
No, Viva-la-differance!
(apologies to any one who can spell in either french or english)
"Neat ideas often work, much like placing the sun in the center of the solar system got rid of extra corrections for "backwards" movement of the planets."
Yes, I am placing the center of simulation within our individual skulls, you are saying that the Universe is centered on an external simulation. I think my argument (nicked from Plato) is neater in the sense that it gets "rid of extra corrections".
"If you get talking about potential universes, well, each of those has the same likelyhood of happening. If there are an infinite amount of "universes" (either spatial or throughout "time") every potential universe will/has/does exist infinite times."
This is more logical than extra layers of existance, after all the edges of my visable universe are unique to me and I have no reason to suspect that the universe does not go on forever. Also (to the other post) "just is" does not imply random, there may be rules that "just are" underlying the randomness. But it need not be that way, "laws of nature" may just be the collection of emergent properties coming from pure randomness, refer to the "mindless intelligence" of an ants nest.
We are part of the Universe and what I percive is my simulated universe, the three dimentional space around me is a simulation generated by me. Unfortunately this also leads to endless recursion as it can be said that I am really just an overly optomistic simulation of myself (thus the dissapointment when I use the mirror in the morning). The alternative to endless recursion is the replacement of free will with a inifinte number of simulated universes residing within a common infinite reality. Because we are part of the universe, it would seem that the universe is inherintely unknowable. An infinite unkowable Universe is more logical but could be seen as grim, I prefer to think of "free will" as an emergent property of life, it "just is", I cannot will what I will what I will what I will....there is not enough time!!!
Finding hidden parts of the Universe that we can all percive (eg:X-rays) expands our common understanding of it, finding extra philosophical layers just leads to more layers until an omni-potent being/thing/design/simulation "just is".
"The solution to the problem is always going to be the same with a computer in control. Slow down, and evade. There will never be a situation where the computer decides to floor it and weave through the obstacles, that will never be allowed in the programming."
Using the approach in TFA, the solution to any partcular situation is generated statistically, the programmer cannot know what the outcome will be. Therefore testing to attain government approval of such sytems will also be statistical.
I would imagine that if this technology takes off, manafcturers will limit their liability for tecnological cock-ups the way they do now, ie: by conforming to mandated standards. When an accident occurs and the company can show it has followed all the rules, the company is off the hook. It then becomes the standards that are scutinised and changed, much the same way as the aviation industry is forced to constantly explain it's incident figures.
Things will go wrong and people will die (just ask any medico), people can only learn by their own or other people's mistakes, those who can't must be prevented from using "sharp objects". If regulations are used to broadcast methods of avoiding those mistakes and dish out punishment to those who willfully ignore the lessons, the industry as a whole will steadily improve. This approach is vividly demonstrated by the costs of large product recalls, not the least of which is loss of public trust. If the company doesn't fess up and do everything they can to rectify the situation then they face both an outraged public and some serious jail time.
Note: The above is a description of a transparent engineering ideal that is more often than not perverted by politics and ethically blind accounting practices. Science is about refining and expanding knowlage, ENGINEERING is about refining and expanding methods for the safe utilisation of that knowlage. In the end the public will determine what is "safe", witness Chernobal's impact on reactor investment and the continuing public reluctance to revist reactors as an alternative to fossil fuels.
Software practices often seem to be part science, part engineering, but mainly goat entrails. Software is not "nuts and bolts", the industry is something brand new to civil engineering but it will eventually be absorbed by the "procedure".
Like electricity 100yrs before, the software industry has and will continue to make mistakes with fatal consequences. The question is, can it learn from them or are we creating anthother "threat to the public" such as some of those involved in the oil, tabbacco, pharmecutical, chemical, minning, agricultural,,,, in fact ALL other industries that have otherwise significant benifits to the public.
For a fleeting moment I thought I understood what was going on with the [counter]clockwise thing, but to be more precise, I'm lost again.
The problem with Matrix type ideas is that they suffer from the same recursive problems as the omni-potent creator. Somewhere in the various levels you need to say something "just is", (eg: The Christian God proclaimed "I am"). I like the Matrix type ideas and they make great sci-fi but isn't it more elegant to cut out all the middlemen and conclude that this Universe "just is".
Distancing the philosophical question of "why" by adding undetectable layers of reality may bring comfort to billions but it really only complicates the question.
All I'm saying is alot of people would not know what Photoshop was, even less would know what GIMP is all about. Off course being instantly recognisable does not mean you are the best, just ask Pepsi.