"I'm aware of not having "been there" for an indeterminate period of time"
Not directly though, from your viewpoint you can never be 'not there'. You can only surmise that there was a gap in consciousness because the environment has changed.
Why haven't you chosen to switch sooner? The last 3 computers purchased at my house were AMD, and although I am not a fanboy of AMD I did like the price/preformance ratio which is why they were bought.
If AMD starts doing DRM shit with bloated pricing, and Intel is the same way as that, I may switch to Mac (so IBM dont screw with DRM with your power chips).
" But you don't have continuity anyhow; most people lose continuity at least once a day."
You cannot lose continunity, a person's experience is continuous, from their subjective viewpoint, until death. There is no place to lose contunity, no place where they are not aware from their viewpoint. During surgery, sleep, or unconsciousness the viewpoint is not subjectively interrupted, there is a seemless transition from to the other from their perspective.
This is why I say subjective viewpoint, objectively there would appear to be a gap in consciousness during surgery, but subjectively from their viewpoint it is seemless as they are never 'not aware' of being there.
"And one of you gets hit by a bus and killed. Why does it matter?"
It matters because if I was the one killed them my life (my subjective viewpoint) has ended. The fact that there is anoter version of me (with their own viewpoint) does me little good.
" Sure. And if I go to the uploading clinic, get anaesthetized, uploaded"
The problem is the continunity is broken at that point since an effectively new consciousness was created, a copy, with the original still being intact.
You can see the problem then if you, the meat, still existed was not 'incinerate[d]', and then a question was asked between you and your copies: 'Which one of you is to die now'. Since each of you has a different viewpoint the resulting answer would be 'not me'.
The upload process would have to keep continunity since as soon as differing consciousnesses are created it would seem to be murder to destroy them, and self distruction if one chooses to be destroyed.
" When, how, and under what circumstances is it ok for copyright owners to protect their content?"
You are making an assumption in this statement, that a person owns the ideas (expressions, thoughts) they create.
I say they do not, and then I say it is up to you to give your arguement as to your justification on how you (through force?) will restrict my freedom of action with regards to accessing information ('yours' or otherwise).
"Or is this Nokia trying to position themselves for something else?"
I think that Nokia and Microsoft did not get a long , and are in competition for various operating system for mobile devices, esp. phones.
I think Nokia's thinking, and IBM's too, is that they will do better if Microsoft is wounded or defeated, they'll all divide up the corpse among the players left standing. Plus since the Linux community is doing the work in developing it, it costs them little to lend their patents to Linux.
Re:Subjective / Objective Viewpoints of Consciousn
on
Download Your Brain
·
· Score: 1
"We're all copies."
Your particular copy though has the same set of experiences starting with your first memory after infantile amnesia (which is why few, if any, people remember anything before the age of ~2) and will end at death.
The point is that this viewpoint will end at death irrespective of how many other copies of you exist.
" A similar but different person has emerged after ~.01 seconds"
Perhaps, although my arguement is that they are the same person in that they share the same subjective viewpoint.
It is the collection of these experiences together that makes up their viewpoint that begins at the end of infantile amenesia and ends at death.
Someone else can have a copy of my memories but will not have my viewpoint, they will have their own, and their memories and their viewpoint will not negate the fact that at death my subjective viewpoint ends.
"But a consciousness wasn't destroyed. When you're sleeping, your mind has no conscious thought processes going on."
Of course it was, consciousness as we are discussing it is the total set of subjective experience that starting after infantile anmenesia has ended (a persons 'first thought / experience / memory') and ends at death.
Because a person is sleeping doesn't mean their subjective experience ceases, in fact a person's subjective experience cannot cease except in death. When you fall unconscious you have no direct experience of doing so, it is as if you weren't out at all, so subjective experience is continuous.
Of course objectively there are time gaps, but subjectively we do not, and cannot, experience them.
"Likewise, your consciousness could be transferred to a new body in a very similar gradual way that replaces the old with the new, bit-by-bit, retaining continuity."
Continuity is the key here. As soon as you create an effectively different consciousness then the continuity is broken.
The question becomes, exactly how fast can a person be transformed? Is a sailing ship with every plank replaced the same ship as the origional? What if 1/2 the planks were replaced over time.
These are interesting questions needed to be answered before people start destroying themselves so immortal copies can exist in their stead.
"Do you really think that you are a being of flesh?"
What I am is what I experience. When I no longer am able to maintain my subjective experience due to death then I no longer exist irrespective of how many copies may exist of me.
"If a copy of me was made, I would still consider that to be "me,""
Yes, it objectively be 'you' and have as much right to call itself WhiplashII as you do. However it has a experience viewpoint that is different than yours and the existance of its viewpoint does not stop the fact that yours would have ended.
"What we experience, if you want to call it that, is user illusion."
User illusion, subjective experience, is all we have. If that ceases, explain to me how copies would help me out, I'd no longer exist as my subjective viewpoint has ended.
Objectively those people would be as much 'me' as I were, each with their own subjective experience viewpoints, but that does not negate the fact that I would be dead.
"If you were killed in your sleep last night and a replica made and put in your place, how would you even know?"
I wouldn't know because I'd be a copy. That does not negate the fact that a consciousness was destroyed even though a new one (me) exists. Destroyed meaning that subjective experience would cease, as in death.
When a person his or her subjective viewpoint ceases irrespective if one or more copies exist to take its place. Having copies, each with their own conscious view point, does not negate the death of the original.
Subjective / Objective Viewpoints of Consciousness
on
Download Your Brain
·
· Score: 1
"I think the copy might disagree with you."
The copy might disagree as would be it's right since it is a seperate being. That does not negate the fact that the original (i.e. you, me, the grandparent) would still no longer exist, think etc.
Would I be happy that a copy exists after I die so my uniqueness isn't extinuished? I dunno, I'd be dead so I doubt I'd have any feeling on the matter.
"And my grade wasn't changed! Doesn't that suck!?"
Did you write down everything with a dated coverletter and explain what the problem is? Doing so means that you are making a case and will appeal, it is a subtle bluff (or perhaps not a bluff at all since I see no reason to appeal it above his or her head, why didn't you?).
I had something similiar happen to me, but the professor had marked things wrong on the exam that were marked right on the text that were word for word. Split the page up into two columns and write your answer down on the left, and write down what the text says (or what your other test said) then highlight the common points. Below put talking points, and clarification.
You also don't need to be confrontational, I said that perhaps his TA was confused when marking the test even though I knew it was them, you have to give these people a way out if your goal is the marks (sometimes a person's goal is to embarrass the professor which is nice, but a secondary consideration in my case:P).
If all that fails, you could aways make a webpage with a scan of the question, your arguement that it is unsolvable, then email his collegues asking for their opinions and include them on the site. The university doesn't want its professors looking stupid, that doesnt really attract students;).
This is true, hopefully I2P will get some press so we can quickly see if it is a dead end or not. Because of it's design it needs little (5-10 minutes) to intergrate into the network as a whole so making test networks would be trivial in comparison to a Freenet test network.
"you can always fork. If you do not agree with the current developers'
direction, fork. "
People
tried to fork Freenet a couple of years ago (October 2003) when it started
going down the shitter (in April 2003). The forkers tried to be as nice as
can be about such an issue, but the current Freenet developers told them in
effect to 'Get the fuck out of here' and they did not bother.
What one of the would be forkers (jrandom) did do though which is a nice kind
of tasty ironic desert is make I2P instead.
Kinda nice, time that would have been spent on Freenet now made an application
that in many respects meets or exceeds the abilities of Freenet.
I really do not want to make this sound like a bitter tale, it really isn't.
I believe both projects (are?) seem to be getting a long since everyone has the
goal of working anonymous p2p. This newest idea of Freenet is looking
towards the future when our government (Western governments) try to outlaw
anonymous p2p like current dictatorships are or have done.
"(Newsbyte) is a known troll who doesn't actually contribute to the
project."
Really, and attacking his character instead of his statements makes you...what
then?
I really hate to get into a debate about character, since I prefer to judge a
statement on its own terms since it seems to be a statement's truth is
independent of the speaker, but Newsbyte runs the
freenethelp.org webpage. He's
not some loner retard coming out of left field, he seems to have large issues
with the (lack of) progress Freenet has taken over these past few years.
Hopefully this will stimulate something in Freenet, but many people have long
since moved on to other anonymous p2p projects.
This conversation really should have taken place a few years ago, but
I think it did (October 1.5 years ago actually) when people wanted to fork
it and go back to a working model. I look at MUTE and see all the forks
and side projects, or BT with all its forks and side projects, but has Freenet
had any forks? It does not look vibrant any more, and defiantly not in
comparison to current
anonymous p2p application development in my opinion. Too bad really,
although this new idea of Freenet's looks interesting, enough to try it they've
little to lose.
"Yes, this is tinfoil hat land in the U.S. but for places like China, Corea, Myanmar, etc. plausible deniability is simply not an option, just being a link in the chain will land you on the short path to the salt mines."
It is quite hard indeed to design a network in which all users are not easily found. In my opinion though Freenet has had it's day and is useful as a experimental network esp. with this new 0.7 routing idea but is no longer in the running for useable anonymous p2p for the masses.
The contender for that is I2P now. Freenet is still useful through for developing the 2nd generation of anonymous p2p when we'll need more protection from node list creators/sniffers when our Western 'democratic' governments outlaw anonymous p2p and come a knockin';).
It is good you are asking although it is best to ask people who know what they are talking about. Although many (most?) of the Slashdot people here are intelligent (in comparison to other chat/blog sites) you should still ask people you know to be competent...
That being said, here is my answer:). Unless the attacker is able to isolate your node by becoming all of your peers you should be safe. You can prevent this of course then by making sure one of your peers is someone you know to trust (although if your peers are a variety of IP addresses throughout the world, it would be hard indeed for someone to be able to become all of your peers).
As well, I2P's anonymity might not be 100% due to unforseen bugs. Freenet is safer than I2P as it's been around longer. If you can do without I2P's usability then use Freenet, you can also try I2P out there is no need for I2P to 'intergrate' like Freenet has to, it should be fairly fast within 5-10 minutes (compared to day(s) with Freenet) of installing.
Perhaps, although not that I've seen. It's mostly people pushing anarchy type
views, copyright infringement (assuming that their country has copyright which
may not) of books esp., and other type blogs. Perhaps we could post the front page,
in text format, of one
of the portals here and count them.
Although just of think, if it was 40-50 years ago we'd be complaining about
communists, or black civil rights organizers, or
gay and lesbian
individuals wanting their freedom. Every age has it's group that is
the bad group of the day and go back far enough and we'll be at the original
witch hunts;). I have little doubt that this
age of hysteria over
terrorists and pedophiles under our beds will pass as well, although I wonder
what the next group will be.
Slashdot Mirror
"And I'm still not sure if they've actually paid the ~500 million Euro fine that was imposed originally."
;).
It would be kool if they were to give that to the FOSS community, that would buy a lot of bounties
Perhaps with that money almost overnight FOSS could slay Microsoft.
"I'm aware of not having "been there" for an indeterminate period of time"
Not directly though, from your viewpoint you can never be 'not there'. You can only surmise that there was a gap in consciousness because the environment has changed.
"Be the first time move from Intel to AMD"
Why haven't you chosen to switch sooner? The last 3 computers purchased at my house were AMD, and although I am not a fanboy of AMD I did like the price/preformance ratio which is why they were bought.
If AMD starts doing DRM shit with bloated pricing, and Intel is the same way as that, I may switch to Mac (so IBM dont screw with DRM with your power chips).
" But you don't have continuity anyhow; most people lose continuity at least once a day."
You cannot lose continunity, a person's experience is continuous, from their subjective viewpoint, until death. There is no place to lose contunity, no place where they are not aware from their viewpoint. During surgery, sleep, or unconsciousness the viewpoint is not subjectively interrupted, there is a seemless transition from to the other from their perspective.
This is why I say subjective viewpoint, objectively there would appear to be a gap in consciousness during surgery, but subjectively from their viewpoint it is seemless as they are never 'not aware' of being there.
"And one of you gets hit by a bus and killed. Why does it matter?"
It matters because if I was the one killed them my life (my subjective viewpoint) has ended. The fact that there is anoter version of me (with their own viewpoint) does me little good.
" Sure. And if I go to the uploading clinic, get anaesthetized, uploaded"
The problem is the continunity is broken at that point since an effectively new consciousness was created, a copy, with the original still being intact.
You can see the problem then if you, the meat, still existed was not 'incinerate[d]', and then a question was asked between you and your copies: 'Which one of you is to die now'. Since each of you has a different viewpoint the resulting answer would be 'not me'.
The upload process would have to keep continunity since as soon as differing consciousnesses are created it would seem to be murder to destroy them, and self distruction if one chooses to be destroyed.
" When, how, and under what circumstances is it ok for copyright owners to protect their content?"
You are making an assumption in this statement, that a person owns the ideas (expressions, thoughts) they create.
I say they do not, and then I say it is up to you to give your arguement as to your justification on how you (through force?) will restrict my freedom of action with regards to accessing information ('yours' or otherwise).
"Or is this Nokia trying to position themselves for something else?" I think that Nokia and Microsoft did not get a long , and are in competition for various operating system for mobile devices, esp. phones. I think Nokia's thinking, and IBM's too, is that they will do better if Microsoft is wounded or defeated, they'll all divide up the corpse among the players left standing. Plus since the Linux community is doing the work in developing it, it costs them little to lend their patents to Linux.
"We're all copies."
Your particular copy though has the same set of experiences starting with your first memory after infantile amnesia (which is why few, if any, people remember anything before the age of ~2) and will end at death.
The point is that this viewpoint will end at death irrespective of how many other copies of you exist.
" A similar but different person has emerged after ~.01 seconds"
Perhaps, although my arguement is that they are the same person in that they share the same subjective viewpoint.
It is the collection of these experiences together that makes up their viewpoint that begins at the end of infantile amenesia and ends at death.
Someone else can have a copy of my memories but will not have my viewpoint, they will have their own, and their memories and their viewpoint will not negate the fact that at death my subjective viewpoint ends.
Continuity is the key here. As soon as you create an effectively different consciousness then the continuity is broken.
"Like every time you go to sleep."
There is a continuation of their subjective viewpoint so it is not 'new' and is not seperate from the previous one.
"What makes the two beings distinct?"
Two beings cannot have the same subjective consciousness, the same viewpoint, as they have different perspectives and perception.
What makes beings disctinct, regardless of if they are copies are not, are these differing perspectives.
"But a consciousness wasn't destroyed. When you're sleeping, your mind has no conscious thought processes going on."
Of course it was, consciousness as we are discussing it is the total set of subjective experience that starting after infantile anmenesia has ended (a persons 'first thought / experience / memory') and ends at death.
Because a person is sleeping doesn't mean their subjective experience ceases, in fact a person's subjective experience cannot cease except in death. When you fall unconscious you have no direct experience of doing so, it is as if you weren't out at all, so subjective experience is continuous.
Of course objectively there are time gaps, but subjectively we do not, and cannot, experience them.
"Likewise, your consciousness could be transferred to a new body in a very similar gradual way that replaces the old with the new, bit-by-bit, retaining continuity."
Continuity is the key here. As soon as you create an effectively different consciousness then the continuity is broken.
The question becomes, exactly how fast can a person be transformed? Is a sailing ship with every plank replaced the same ship as the origional? What if 1/2 the planks were replaced over time.
These are interesting questions needed to be answered before people start destroying themselves so immortal copies can exist in their stead.
"Do you really think that you are a being of flesh?"
What I am is what I experience. When I no longer am able to maintain my subjective experience due to death then I no longer exist irrespective of how many copies may exist of me.
"If a copy of me was made, I would still consider that to be "me,""
Yes, it objectively be 'you' and have as much right to call itself WhiplashII as you do. However it has a experience viewpoint that is different than yours and the existance of its viewpoint does not stop the fact that yours would have ended.
"I would be quite happy with this, given the alternative"
No you wouldn't be happy, you'd be dead. I'm sure your copy would be happy though as good as that does you (which is not at all).
"What we experience, if you want to call it that, is user illusion."
User illusion, subjective experience, is all we have. If that ceases, explain to me how copies would help me out, I'd no longer exist as my subjective viewpoint has ended.
Objectively those people would be as much 'me' as I were, each with their own subjective experience viewpoints, but that does not negate the fact that I would be dead.
"If you were killed in your sleep last night and a replica made and put in your place, how would you even know?"
I wouldn't know because I'd be a copy. That does not negate the fact that a consciousness was destroyed even though a new one (me) exists. Destroyed meaning that subjective experience would cease, as in death.
When a person his or her subjective viewpoint ceases irrespective if one or more copies exist to take its place. Having copies, each with their own conscious view point, does not negate the death of the original.
"I think the copy might disagree with you."
The copy might disagree as would be it's right since it is a seperate being. That does not negate the fact that the original (i.e. you, me, the grandparent) would still no longer exist, think etc.
Would I be happy that a copy exists after I die so my uniqueness isn't extinuished? I dunno, I'd be dead so I doubt I'd have any feeling on the matter.
"And my grade wasn't changed! Doesn't that suck!?"
:P).
;).
Did you write down everything with a dated coverletter and explain what the problem is? Doing so means that you are making a case and will appeal, it is a subtle bluff (or perhaps not a bluff at all since I see no reason to appeal it above his or her head, why didn't you?).
I had something similiar happen to me, but the professor had marked things wrong on the exam that were marked right on the text that were word for word. Split the page up into two columns and write your answer down on the left, and write down what the text says (or what your other test said) then highlight the common points. Below put talking points, and clarification.
You also don't need to be confrontational, I said that perhaps his TA was confused when marking the test even though I knew it was them, you have to give these people a way out if your goal is the marks (sometimes a person's goal is to embarrass the professor which is nice, but a secondary consideration in my case
If all that fails, you could aways make a webpage with a scan of the question, your arguement that it is unsolvable, then email his collegues asking for their opinions and include them on the site. The university doesn't want its professors looking stupid, that doesnt really attract students
"I2P has less than 100 nodes"
This is true, hopefully I2P will get some press so we can quickly see if it is a dead end or not. Because of it's design it needs little (5-10 minutes) to intergrate into the network as a whole so making test networks would be trivial in comparison to a Freenet test network.
"you can always fork. If you do not agree with the current developers' direction, fork. "
People tried to fork Freenet a couple of years ago (October 2003) when it started going down the shitter (in April 2003). The forkers tried to be as nice as can be about such an issue, but the current Freenet developers told them in effect to 'Get the fuck out of here' and they did not bother.
What one of the would be forkers (jrandom) did do though which is a nice kind of tasty ironic desert is make I2P instead. Kinda nice, time that would have been spent on Freenet now made an application that in many respects meets or exceeds the abilities of Freenet.
I really do not want to make this sound like a bitter tale, it really isn't. I believe both projects (are?) seem to be getting a long since everyone has the goal of working anonymous p2p. This newest idea of Freenet is looking towards the future when our government (Western governments) try to outlaw anonymous p2p like current dictatorships are or have done.
"(Newsbyte) is a known troll who doesn't actually contribute to the project."
Really, and attacking his character instead of his statements makes you...what then?
I really hate to get into a debate about character, since I prefer to judge a statement on its own terms since it seems to be a statement's truth is independent of the speaker, but Newsbyte runs the freenethelp.org webpage. He's not some loner retard coming out of left field, he seems to have large issues with the (lack of) progress Freenet has taken over these past few years. Hopefully this will stimulate something in Freenet, but many people have long since moved on to other anonymous p2p projects.
This conversation really should have taken place a few years ago, but I think it did (October 1.5 years ago actually) when people wanted to fork it and go back to a working model. I look at MUTE and see all the forks and side projects, or BT with all its forks and side projects, but has Freenet had any forks? It does not look vibrant any more, and defiantly not in comparison to current anonymous p2p application development in my opinion. Too bad really, although this new idea of Freenet's looks interesting, enough to try it they've little to lose.
"Yes, this is tinfoil hat land in the U.S. but for places like China, Corea, Myanmar, etc. plausible deniability is simply not an option, just being a link in the chain will land you on the short path to the salt mines."
;).
It is quite hard indeed to design a network in which all users are not easily found. In my opinion though Freenet has had it's day and is useful as a experimental network esp. with this new 0.7 routing idea but is no longer in the running for useable anonymous p2p for the masses.
The contender for that is I2P now. Freenet is still useful through for developing the 2nd generation of anonymous p2p when we'll need more protection from node list creators/sniffers when our Western 'democratic' governments outlaw anonymous p2p and come a knockin'
"If not, is there a threshold level?"
:). Unless the attacker is able to isolate your node by becoming all of your peers you should be safe. You can prevent this of course then by making sure one of your peers is someone you know to trust (although if your peers are a variety of IP addresses throughout the world, it would be hard indeed for someone to be able to become all of your peers).
It is good you are asking although it is best to ask people who know what they are talking about. Although many (most?) of the Slashdot people here are intelligent (in comparison to other chat/blog sites) you should still ask people you know to be competent...
That being said, here is my answer
As well, I2P's anonymity might not be 100% due to unforseen bugs. Freenet is safer than I2P as it's been around longer. If you can do without I2P's usability then use Freenet, you can also try I2P out there is no need for I2P to 'intergrate' like Freenet has to, it should be fairly fast within 5-10 minutes (compared to day(s) with Freenet) of installing.
"There's a very large number of them."
;). I have little doubt that this
age of hysteria over
terrorists and pedophiles under our beds will pass as well, although I wonder
what the next group will be.
Perhaps, although not that I've seen. It's mostly people pushing anarchy type views, copyright infringement (assuming that their country has copyright which may not) of books esp., and other type blogs. Perhaps we could post the front page, in text format, of one of the portals here and count them.
Although just of think, if it was 40-50 years ago we'd be complaining about communists, or black civil rights organizers, or gay and lesbian individuals wanting their freedom. Every age has it's group that is the bad group of the day and go back far enough and we'll be at the original witch hunts