Technical superiority means little in the marketplace, and a huge dose of loud-mouthed platform bigotry will surely do Linux harm despite its merits.
How much of a clue does the average Linux user have as to what the average consumer wants in a pc or operating system? This article does a good job at pointing out what too many miss.
It's decided then - only atheists will be immortal!
The important theological question is whether you can electronically capture the "soul". You can't disprove the existence of soul, but if you can prove that the electronic copy has complete consciousness and memory, it would challenge many of the most fundamental tenets of western religion.
On reading this, I was immediately prompted to ask a friend the following long and convoluted question...
I'm not sure about this. Aside from the pure fiction example, there seem to be some serious assumptions made that aren't supported. In this fragment:
>Consider this: If we scan me, for example, and >record the exact state, level and position of my >every neurotransmitter, synapse, neural >connection and other relevant details, and then >reinstantiate this massive database into a >neural computer, then who is the real me? If you >ask the machine, it will vehemently claim to be >the original Ray. Since it will have all of my >memories, it will say, "I grew up in Queens, New >York, went to college at MIT, stayed in the >Boston area, sold a few artificial intelligence >companies, walked into a scanner there and woke >up in the machine here. Hey, this technology >really works."
they discuss in detail exactly what it is about which I have the greatest doubts. Is brain science actually advanced enough to say with certainty that if we "record the exact state, level and position of my every neurotransmitter, synapse, neural connection and other relevant details, and then reinstantiate this massive database into a neural computer" we will actually be able to copy consciousness and memory? Maybe I haven't been keeping up, but I thought that was still a major theoretical jump. The whole article is predicated on the existence (or evolution) of "scanning" technology - but it doesn't seem that they ever answer the question "If we can make a perfect electronic replica of the physical brain, will the electronic replica have complete consciousness and memory?"
I'm rather curious, because that's always been one of the biggest conundrums in the definition of "soul". If you can make a copy of the brain, and it retains all those functions, you're on your way to disproving the existence of a "soul", or at least flying in the face of most pertinent Christian theology. It may not be scientifically possible to disprove the existence of God, but it may be scientifically possible to shatter every major tenet of western religion.
But, as I said, it doesn't look to me like they ever support the assumption that making an exact copy as stated will yield complete consciousness and memory. Is that a valid assumption, to the best of your knowledge?
Because the candy colored case I want costs under $200, and the rack mount cases I can deal with start somewhere between $600-$800, plus the cost of the rack. Simple economics - for a system for myself, I don't want to spend more for the case than for the motherboard, CPU and memory combined unless I absolutely NEED a rack mount system.
If I'm building a system for home use, these colored cases aren't a bad fit, and the price is in the right ballpark. If you can get a colored case with some style for the same price as the boring beige ones, why not? Now, if I'm building a graphics engine to haul around to clubs, it's gonna be either laptop-based or rack-mount, no questions.
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Technical superiority means little in the marketplace, and a huge dose of loud-mouthed platform bigotry will surely do Linux harm despite its merits.
How much of a clue does the average Linux user have as to what the average consumer wants in a pc or operating system? This article does a good job at pointing out what too many miss.
It's decided then - only atheists will be immortal!
The important theological question is whether you can electronically capture the "soul". You can't disprove the existence of soul, but if you can prove that the electronic copy has complete consciousness and memory, it would challenge many of the most fundamental tenets of western religion.
On reading this, I was immediately prompted to ask a friend the following long and convoluted question...
I'm not sure about this. Aside from the pure fiction example, there seem to be some serious assumptions made that aren't supported. In this fragment:
>Consider this: If we scan me, for example, and >record the exact state, level and position of my >every neurotransmitter, synapse, neural >connection and other relevant details, and then >reinstantiate this massive database into a >neural computer, then who is the real me? If you >ask the machine, it will vehemently claim to be >the original Ray. Since it will have all of my >memories, it will say, "I grew up in Queens, New >York, went to college at MIT, stayed in the >Boston area, sold a few artificial intelligence >companies, walked into a scanner there and woke >up in the machine here. Hey, this technology >really works."
they discuss in detail exactly what it is about which I have the greatest doubts. Is brain science actually advanced enough to say with certainty that if we "record the exact state, level and position of my every neurotransmitter, synapse, neural connection and other relevant details, and then reinstantiate this massive database into a neural computer" we will actually be able to copy consciousness and memory? Maybe I haven't been keeping up, but I thought that was still a major theoretical jump. The whole article is predicated on the existence (or evolution) of "scanning" technology - but it doesn't seem that they ever answer the question "If we can make a perfect electronic replica of the physical brain, will the electronic replica have complete consciousness and memory?"
I'm rather curious, because that's always been one of the biggest conundrums in the definition of "soul". If you can make a copy of the brain, and it retains all those functions, you're on your way to disproving the existence of a "soul", or at least flying in the face of most pertinent Christian theology. It may not be scientifically possible to disprove the existence of God, but it may be scientifically possible to shatter every major tenet of western religion.
But, as I said, it doesn't look to me like they ever support the assumption that making an exact copy as stated will yield complete consciousness and memory. Is that a valid assumption, to the best of your knowledge?
Because the candy colored case I want costs under $200, and the rack mount cases I can deal with start somewhere between $600-$800, plus the cost of the rack. Simple economics - for a system for myself, I don't want to spend more for the case than for the motherboard, CPU and memory combined unless I absolutely NEED a rack mount system.
If I'm building a system for home use, these colored cases aren't a bad fit, and the price is in the right ballpark. If you can get a colored case with some style for the same price as the boring beige ones, why not? Now, if I'm building a graphics engine to haul around to clubs, it's gonna be either laptop-based or rack-mount, no questions.