or just a beneficial adaptation to the massively parallel disconnected-information inputs we have today?
I mean, if you have a lot of flowers to explore right in front of you, shouldn't you act like a bumblebee?
I know that attention switching leads to reduced ability to focus and go deep, but day-to-day survival and optimization these days don't require those skills from most people. The more important skill is knowing from your phone and text-friends what's up right now and just next, and how not to miss it.
Yes. It is completely bizarre that a partially open platform, albeit with rules and constraints, gets hit with anti-trust penalties whereas Apple's completely closed and inherently monopolistic platform does not. What's up with that?
Buying then panic-developing Android was Google's response to Apple iPhone after all. Android was a successful attempt to thwart a monopoly in the smartphone and smartphone software market. Still, Android certainly doesn't dominate the smartphone and smartphone apps market. It's a duopoly with Apple, in a knock-down cage match wit each other, if anything.
"I see. 160 hours just to sit on your ass doing nothing is very torturing."
Almost as torturing as 4 hours sitting on your ass programming routes into a GPS flight computer followed by 76 hours sitting on your ass dozing off and staring out the window at the aurora borealis.
In the context of mobile data plans, a layperson is within rights to construe it as "without imposed limits on monthly data volume communicated to/from my device(s) over the network."
If it encourages a slowly building avalanche of other countries, states, and pension funds etc to divest at greater scale, then it's not useless at all. It would then be materially effective "virtue signalling". Go Ireland!
Given that we all have to get off fossil fuel pretty much completely by mid-century, disincentivising the fossil fuel industry starting now is actually virtuous. If being actuually virtuous also signals that to others so that they can get on the actually virtuous bandwagon too, so much the better.
Not only that, if humanity succeeds at the rapid de-fossilization of energy that is needed (according to the physics of the situation), then Ireland's move will also likely be a financially smart move.
The reality is that carbon is going to have to be priced (via taxation or cap and trade) high enough to actually start gradual then rapid braking on oil consumption and production.
Fossil-fuel investment is beginning to look really stupid financially (if we're going to succeed at reducing fossil fuel use), or alternatively, really evil (if you're continuing to invest in fossil fuel expansiion, which blocks progress in reduction of production and use and thus prevents reduction of harmful emissions.)
In that all of the other 196 countries of the world have agreed to it (178 ratified), and the US looks like a spoiled kid in the corner having a tantrum.
So US can't withdraw formally before that date (which is just after the next US Presidential election). The only way to withdraw before that is if the US government acted like a total douchebag.... Oh wait, never mind.
"In accordance with Article 28 of the Paris Agreement, the earliest possible effective withdrawal date by the United States cannot be before November 4, 2020"
Well, the scientific consensus now is that negative emissions (active removal of atmospheric CO2) will be required in addition to emissions reductions to 0, to have a good chance of keeping temperature rise below 2 degrees C.
This is due to delay in beginning our reduction trajectory.
And there is presently no assurance that an effective active removal mechanism can be implemented in time.
But I haven't heard any serious scientists call for immediate tap turning off. They have in general merely pleaded that we stop INCREASING fossil fuel production rate (as we still are increasing), and IMMEDIATELY begin a gradual ramp down. Nobody needs to die. The only ones I've ever heard talking about turning off tap immediately and causing deaths are those who do not want us to make any changes at all, in other words the deniers and party-on'ers.
But you do understand, right, that the physical system - in this case the Earth and its surface temperature - doesn't respond to the vagaries of or compromises reached by human political processes. It only responds to physically effective solutions, based on the physics of the situation.
People do get that, don't they?
So what I am saying would be good would be if the politically implemented solutions are substantial enough and of the right kind to affect (in the direction considered safer) the evolution of the physical system. The solution should have measurable effect, even though in this case, due to the spatiotemporal scale of the system, it will take several decades to find out if implemented solutions are moving the needle.
Anything else is just re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, as the saying goes.
The study sets out to explain "the apparently lifeless universe we in fact observe".
But that is bollocks. We have not observed far enough away with enough precision to determine lifelessness, and given the low resolution (spatial and spectral) of our observations, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
We are only now starting to catalog exoplanets, and have not observed any of them in spectrographic detail.
In terms of time, any civilization looking for us would have to be within 150 lightyears of us (a tiny distance on "observable universe" scales, to have detected our radio emanations phase. And that phase of unencrypted (i.e. non-random) and/or analog radio communications is quickly coming to an end, as we move to fibre-optics and encrypted digital which seems like noise if you don't have the decryption key.
So we have not done anywhere near enough observation to even establish an empirical probability of absence of life in the near quadrant of our own galaxy, never mind the observable universe. Preposterous assumption underlying this study.
Process: natural selection created human generalist engineers, who created computers, computer networks, and then self-reproducing computer viruses.
So at least the "human + computer viruses" system is alive.
If computer viruses got better, and knew how to sustain their hardware and software and trick humans into helping repair their infrastructure on occasion, then maybe they would be getting close to a life definition. All, if you go back far enough, via natural selection. And if different self-modifying computer viruses start fighting with each other for network bandwidth and storage space, (or co-operating with each other, amalgamating), then.... more natural selection, in a different medium.
biochemistry is not fundamental to (a generalized but valid definition of) life.
All that is fundamental is a constrained-form complex system that is capable of continuing itself, including, by necessity probably, a capability to adapt to changing or new environments, and to adapt to competition.
Nothing in that definition mandates biochemistry.
Biochemistry is a way by which the definition can be met, and may be the only way the definition can be met in a "bootstrapping from nothing but molecules in a gravity well" kind of sense. But once biochemistry has evolved the equivalent of humans, that is the "general cognition, problem-solving, engineering" species, then life can further bootstrap itself into other non biochemical platforms and systems which then still meet the definition that "once they are there, they are capable of staying there, despite being complex and improbable."
I think that once/if silicon-based intelligence gets the capability to generate power for itself (e.g. building solar and wind farms and energy storage) and the capability to reliably produce copies of its host computers and networks, and the ability to defend all of that against harm, then there's no reason to say at that point that it wouldn't be life.
Carbon-based chemistry (the "wetness" of it, non-fragility of forms, versatility of variation and chaining in the chemistry and physical properties of organic molecules), certainly allowed for the incremental evolutionary advances and low relative-Kolmogorov-complexity variation experiments needed for self-bootstrapping life from molecules. So that chemistry is almost certain to be what "initial life" looks like everywhere.
But as life evolves, evolution as a process used by that life can also evolve, until it can start using alternative means of function and reproduction, such as meme reproduction, computer memory and digital information networks, artificial neural nets and digital imaging sensors, complex but fragile constructor processes. So life can "make itself" out of a wider variety of materials, eventually. That's just one of the evolved improvements in that (global) life system.
I think the correct way to think of viruses is to draw the boundary of the living system differently. The virus living-system comprises the virus bodies plus a spatiotemporal subset of host organisms. That is, the parts and mechanisms of the host organism that the virus uses for a period of time to perform its reproduction. The system boundary (of a living system) is the minimum boundary of a matter/energy system that can accomplish the "living" definition above. In the virus case, that boundary is bigger than the individual virii bodies, but so what.
Ants pretty much need a colony worth of them to survive, through much of their lifecycle. So is a (worker) ant alive? Or is it more a component of a larger colony-system that meets the full life definition?
Slashdot Mirror
or just a beneficial adaptation to the massively parallel disconnected-information inputs we have today?
I mean, if you have a lot of flowers to explore right in front of you, shouldn't you act like a bumblebee?
I know that attention switching leads to reduced ability to focus and go deep, but day-to-day survival and optimization these days don't require those skills from most people. The more important skill is knowing from your phone and text-friends what's up right now and just next, and how not to miss it.
Yes. It is completely bizarre that a partially open platform, albeit with rules and constraints, gets hit with anti-trust penalties whereas Apple's completely closed and inherently monopolistic platform does not. What's up with that?
Buying then panic-developing Android was Google's response to Apple iPhone after all. Android was a successful attempt to thwart a monopoly in the smartphone and smartphone software market. Still, Android certainly doesn't dominate the smartphone and smartphone apps market. It's a duopoly with Apple, in a knock-down cage match wit each other, if anything.
The irony is strong with this one.
"I see. 160 hours just to sit on your ass doing nothing is very torturing."
Almost as torturing as 4 hours sitting on your ass programming routes into a GPS flight computer followed by 76 hours sitting on your ass dozing off and staring out the window at the aurora borealis.
So then those 10 states are evil AF and all of the rest, and their own citizens, should call them on it.
It means "without imposed limits".
In the context of mobile data plans, a layperson is within rights to construe it as "without imposed limits on monthly data volume communicated to/from my device(s) over the network."
If it encourages a slowly building avalanche of other countries, states, and pension funds etc to divest at greater scale, then it's not useless at all. It would then be materially effective "virtue signalling". Go Ireland!
"Virtue signalling" accompanied by actually effective virtuous action is not a bad thing.
Because it may encourage more actually virtuous action.
We need a lot of change, fast, on this issue, and a lot of rapid effective action by governments worldwide.
So signal away. Good job Ireland for leading the way!
Given that we all have to get off fossil fuel pretty much completely by mid-century, disincentivising the fossil fuel industry starting now is actually virtuous. If being actuually virtuous also signals that to others so that they can get on the actually virtuous bandwagon too, so much the better.
Not only that, if humanity succeeds at the rapid de-fossilization of energy that is needed (according to the physics of the situation), then Ireland's move will also likely be a financially smart move.
The reality is that carbon is going to have to be priced (via taxation or cap and trade) high enough to actually start gradual then rapid braking on oil consumption and production.
Fossil-fuel investment is beginning to look really stupid financially (if we're going to succeed at reducing fossil fuel use), or alternatively, really evil (if you're continuing to invest in fossil fuel expansiion, which blocks progress in reduction of production and use and thus prevents reduction of harmful emissions.)
Orwellian f^cking language. Why is this even legal?
Perhaps, instead?
And let the scooters use the roads.
In that all of the other 196 countries of the world have agreed to it (178 ratified), and the US looks like a spoiled kid in the corner having a tantrum.
Re: gradually slowing down (record-high) fossil fuel production and consumption will kill people - to paraphrase.
This is utter bullshit, and a talking-point dreamed up in the back rooms of the Koch brothers shill factory.
in the eyes of near-future generations of people worldwide, including in the US mid-west desert-sandbasket (formerly breadbasket).
So US can't withdraw formally before that date (which is just after the next US Presidential election).
The only way to withdraw before that is if the US government acted like a total douchebag....
Oh wait, never mind.
"In accordance with Article 28 of the Paris Agreement, the earliest possible effective withdrawal date by the United States cannot be before November 4, 2020"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Expiry or change of key or cert or something along those lines.
Causing ET to be unable to call home.
before they find us????
You have to look at the big picture....:-)
Well, the scientific consensus now is that negative emissions (active removal of atmospheric CO2) will be required in addition to emissions reductions to 0, to have a good chance of keeping temperature rise below 2 degrees C.
This is due to delay in beginning our reduction trajectory.
And there is presently no assurance that an effective active removal mechanism can be implemented in time.
But I haven't heard any serious scientists call for immediate tap turning off. They have in general merely pleaded that we stop INCREASING fossil fuel production rate (as we still are increasing), and IMMEDIATELY begin a gradual ramp down. Nobody needs to die. The only ones I've ever heard talking about turning off tap immediately and causing deaths are those who do not want us to make any changes at all, in other words the deniers and party-on'ers.
But you do understand, right, that the physical system - in this case the Earth and its surface temperature - doesn't respond to the vagaries of or compromises reached by human political processes. It only responds to physically effective solutions, based on the physics of the situation.
People do get that, don't they?
So what I am saying would be good would be if the politically implemented solutions are substantial enough and of the right kind to affect (in the direction considered safer) the evolution of the physical system.
The solution should have measurable effect, even though in this case, due to the spatiotemporal scale of the system, it will take several decades to find out if implemented solutions are moving the needle.
Anything else is just re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, as the saying goes.
Good point - general information processors are an emergent system with a good amount of substrate-independence.
The study sets out to explain "the apparently lifeless universe we in fact observe".
But that is bollocks.
We have not observed far enough away with enough precision to determine lifelessness, and given the low resolution (spatial and spectral) of our observations, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
We are only now starting to catalog exoplanets, and have not observed any of them in spectrographic detail.
In terms of time, any civilization looking for us would have to be within 150 lightyears of us (a tiny distance on "observable universe" scales, to have detected our radio emanations phase. And that phase of unencrypted (i.e. non-random) and/or analog radio communications is quickly coming to an end, as we move to fibre-optics and encrypted digital which seems like noise if you don't have the decryption key.
So we have not done anywhere near enough observation to even establish an empirical probability of absence of life in the near quadrant of our own galaxy, never mind the observable universe. Preposterous assumption underlying this study.
Process: natural selection created human generalist engineers, who created computers, computer networks, and then self-reproducing computer viruses.
So at least the "human + computer viruses" system is alive.
If computer viruses got better, and knew how to sustain their hardware and software and trick humans into helping repair their infrastructure on occasion, then maybe they would be getting close to a life definition. All, if you go back far enough, via natural selection. And if different self-modifying computer viruses start fighting with each other for network bandwidth and storage space, (or co-operating with each other, amalgamating), then.... more natural selection, in a different medium.
biochemistry is not fundamental to (a generalized but valid definition of) life.
All that is fundamental is a constrained-form complex system that is capable of continuing itself, including, by necessity probably, a capability to adapt to changing or new environments, and to adapt to competition.
Nothing in that definition mandates biochemistry.
Biochemistry is a way by which the definition can be met, and may be the only way the definition can be met in a "bootstrapping from nothing but molecules in a gravity well" kind of sense. But once biochemistry has evolved the equivalent of humans, that is the "general cognition, problem-solving, engineering" species, then life can further bootstrap itself into other non biochemical platforms and systems which then still meet the definition that "once they are there, they are capable of staying there, despite being complex and improbable."
I think that once/if silicon-based intelligence gets the capability to generate power for itself (e.g. building solar and wind farms and energy storage) and the capability to reliably produce copies of its host computers and networks, and the ability to defend all of that against harm, then there's no reason to say at that point that it wouldn't be life.
Carbon-based chemistry (the "wetness" of it, non-fragility of forms, versatility of variation and chaining in the chemistry and physical properties of organic molecules), certainly allowed for the incremental evolutionary advances and low relative-Kolmogorov-complexity variation experiments needed for self-bootstrapping life from molecules. So that chemistry is almost certain to be what "initial life" looks like everywhere.
But as life evolves, evolution as a process used by that life can also evolve, until it can start using alternative means of function and reproduction, such as meme reproduction, computer memory and digital information networks, artificial neural nets and digital imaging sensors, complex but fragile constructor processes. So life can "make itself" out of a wider variety of materials, eventually. That's just one of the evolved improvements in that (global) life system.
I think the correct way to think of viruses is to draw the boundary of the living system differently. The virus living-system comprises the virus bodies plus a spatiotemporal subset of host organisms. That is, the parts and mechanisms of the host organism that the virus uses for a period of time to perform its reproduction. The system boundary (of a living system) is the minimum boundary of a matter/energy system that can accomplish the "living" definition above. In the virus case, that boundary is bigger than the individual virii bodies, but so what.
Ants pretty much need a colony worth of them to survive, through much of their lifecycle. So is a (worker) ant alive? Or is it more a component of a larger colony-system that meets the full life definition?