I may have missed something in your argument, then.
I was not trying to introduce the idea of quantifying the fallibilities you mentioned either. Where I disagree with you, is that I don't see any relation between the qualities you mentioned and Goedel's theorem. Goedel's theorem is about the things that can be proven by strict deductive logic. Human reasoning is inductive, and most of our failings (mistaken beliefs, inability to follow thoughts through to their logical conclusion, inability to resolve inconsistant articles of faith, etc.) arise from the nature of inductive reasoning and the imperfect nature of our own reasoning process. (We don't necessarily make the best induction possible, based on the available data.) I really don't see these failings as being due to the limitations of Goedel's theorem.
Maybe I've missed your train of thought somewhere, but it seemed as if you were assuming that just because Goedel proved that some things are unprovable, that every time we fail to be able to prove something it must be due to Goedel's theorem. That would be a fallacious argument.
You have misunderstood what Goedel's theorem says.
You wrote, in your earlier reply "It will have to wind up having (and acting on) mistaken beliefs, either through inability to follow thoughts through to their logical conclusion, inability to resolve inconsistant articles of faith, or both."
These human characteristics (having mistaken beliefs, and failing to follow thoughts through to their logical conclusion and to resolve inconsistent articles of faith) really have nothing whatsoever to do with Goedel's theorem. I happen to agree with you that a true AI is likely to be as fallible in these areas as we are, because a complex intelligence needs a certain 'flexibility' in dealing with information. That leads to powerful, inductive reasoning, but also to errors and inconsistencies. Goedel's theorem is unrelated to this, however.
B.S. It's not at all clear that any of these characteristics of human intelligence have anything whatsoever to do with Goedel's theorem. Goedel's theorem does have implications for AI, but they are much more subtle than this.
What a pointless thing to say. A digital signal is by definition a signal on which information has been encoded digitally. An analog signal is similarly a signal on which information has been encoded via FM, AM, PM, etc.
Yeah, but what we're talking about here isn't really an 'HDTV tuner' in the conventional sense. It's not a box designed to deliver HD-quality video to a monitor that can display it. It is a box designed to deliver a conventional NTSC analog signal to an old TV. The box needs to be as cheap as possible, to support the large market of people with old TVs that need to be adapted to receive digital broadcasts. I would expect these adaptors to include an RF converter. They probably won't include any connections more advanced than a composite or perhaps an S-video output.
RTFA. It apparently works for incoming calls too. Presumably their software automatically dials your preprogrammed cell number when an incoming call comes in via Skype.
More specifically, Einstein was expressing his discomfort with the inherent, non-deterministic randomness that occurs in Quantum Mechanics. It is noteworthy that Einstein is now well established to have been wrong on this point. God, in fact, does play dice.
Things don't always work that way. Lots of things that appear to be disadvantageous for survival or reproduction do not get weeded out of the gene pool, for various reasons.
One example: some recessive genes (those requiring two copies for full expression) cause serious genetic disorders when you inherit two copies, but a slight survival advantage if you inherit only one copy. IIRC, cystic fibrosis and sickle cell anemia both fall into this category, with single copies of the abnormal gene conferring improved survival against cholera and malaria, respectively. The slight increase in survival of the many individuals who inherit one copy of the gene more than makes up for the greatly decreased survival of those who inherit two copies, and natural selection ensures that the gene remains in the gene pool (but ensures that the percentage of individuals with that gene also does not become too high).
I have no idea if a 'gay gene' if such a thing exists would fall into this category, but there are other ways that a gene that appears to confer a survival/reproduction disadvantage can persist in the gene pool without being selected out. Note also that it is not true that "Gays don't naturally reproduce". There are many gay people with children.
Oops, never mind. It turns out I'm wrong. Rotating frames are not completely relative in GR, unlike linearly-accelerated frames. So, my comments on inertia vs. gravity are true, but the argument does not apply to centrifugal force.
The whole point of General Relativity is that all reference frames are equally good, and physics has to work correctly in all of them. The rotating reference frame is no less 'true' than the rotating one, and centrifugal force is just as 'real' as gravity.
Note that I picked gravity as an example for a good reason here. The apparent downward force you feel in an accelerating reference frame is indistinguishable from gravity in GR. In classical physics, this force would be considered 'fictitious' for the same reason the centrifugal force is--it's just a manifestation of your inertia, viewed from a non-stationary reference frame. Einstein showed that in fact this 'fictitious' force actually is gravity--there is no difference between this force and the more familiar force we feel due to the pull of massive objects.
I'm a physicist. Trust me, there is plenty of mystery in both quantum mechanics and relativity. Both are complicated and definitely counter-intuitive. To the extent that the theories we have are created by us, yes there is no mystery there. The mystery lies (as always) in the real world, and in the things we do not yet understand. There is more physics waiting there for us to discover, and it's hard to tell what we might find.
To be fair, while Einstein often referred to God, it's not clear what his beliefs were and they can be construed to be metaphorical. This doesn't impact your main point, though. There are certainly many other scientists (past and present) who are also religious, and who see the wonder of the universe as more evidence of the greatness of God.
I think Sagan's view may be a little too narrow here. There is certainly a long history of Christian scientists and philosophers who have looked at the universe and nature with awe and seen the handiwork of God there. My God is a big god. A God who created a Universe that is vaster than we can possibly imagine, with more worlds than we can count. A God who created the beauty and mystery of quantum mechanics, and relativity. We are God's children, but I have little doubt that in this vast universe God has other children. Maybe we will meet them someday, in this life or the next. I hope so.
For that matter, even if there were intelligent life on other planets it doesn't necessarily smash the idea of humans having been created 'in the image of God'. Many, if not most, modern Christians do not interpret 'in the image of God' to mean a physical image. We are created in God's image in the sense that we have a capacity to know, to understand, to love, and to do good. God can pretty clearly take on any physical form he likes. It wouldn't be very meaningful to say that we are created in his image physically. So, it's quite possible that if we met intelligent aliens they might also be 'created in God's image', even if they look nothing like us.
I see. I kind of like the fact that tabs are completely under my (the user's) control. The web page designer controls most other things, but it's my choice whether I see any given link open in a new window or a new tab. Maybe it's better this way. It's also probably less confusing for the newbs.
They do make a huge difference. Many people are not using Adblock or Flashblock. Firefox's built-in popup blocking was good at first, but the advertisers have clearly begun to adapt around it.
The popups typically occur if you have a default configuration of Firefox, have installed Flash, and aren't using any blocking extensions like FlashBlock or AdBlock. Your configuration must differ from the above.
It was still an outrageous decision. The fact that other restaurants serve coffee 20 degrees too cold should not make McDonald's liable merely for serving coffee at the optimum temperature for good taste. Hot coffee is supposed to be hot. It is the customer's responsibility to be aware of that and to handle it appropriately. The fact that she had serious burns from the incident is not McDonalds' problem, since the accident was her own damn fault.
They do have to at least seem to be manufacturer-sealed. If the bottle has been opened they aren't going to let you take it on the plane without additional checks to make sure it's not something dangerous.
The amount of radiation received is portrayed as being low. What they neglect to mention is the dosage per UNIT TIME. Sure, you get more on an International flight, but it is amortized over a number of hours, not minutes or seconds. For example, a bone marrow recipient has the old defective marrow killed off by radiation over a couple of days; the same dosage would be fatal if given over a short time period. You also have to add in the cumulative effect of being scanned now in ADDITION to any other radiation you already would receive. If you fly frequently, this may be alarming.
It's not just low dosage, it's low frequency. These scanners use terahertz radiation AFAIK, which is non-ionizing. It's a very different thing from the radiation used to treat cancer.
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I was not trying to introduce the idea of quantifying the fallibilities you mentioned either. Where I disagree with you, is that I don't see any relation between the qualities you mentioned and Goedel's theorem. Goedel's theorem is about the things that can be proven by strict deductive logic. Human reasoning is inductive, and most of our failings (mistaken beliefs, inability to follow thoughts through to their logical conclusion, inability to resolve inconsistant articles of faith, etc.) arise from the nature of inductive reasoning and the imperfect nature of our own reasoning process. (We don't necessarily make the best induction possible, based on the available data.) I really don't see these failings as being due to the limitations of Goedel's theorem.
Maybe I've missed your train of thought somewhere, but it seemed as if you were assuming that just because Goedel proved that some things are unprovable, that every time we fail to be able to prove something it must be due to Goedel's theorem. That would be a fallacious argument.
Or the fact that there are currently TWO capital-I Internets (Internet 2 has been up and running for a while now).
You wrote, in your earlier reply "It will have to wind up having (and acting on) mistaken beliefs, either through inability to follow thoughts through to their logical conclusion, inability to resolve inconsistant articles of faith, or both."
These human characteristics (having mistaken beliefs, and failing to follow thoughts through to their logical conclusion and to resolve inconsistent articles of faith) really have nothing whatsoever to do with Goedel's theorem. I happen to agree with you that a true AI is likely to be as fallible in these areas as we are, because a complex intelligence needs a certain 'flexibility' in dealing with information. That leads to powerful, inductive reasoning, but also to errors and inconsistencies. Goedel's theorem is unrelated to this, however.
B.S. It's not at all clear that any of these characteristics of human intelligence have anything whatsoever to do with Goedel's theorem. Goedel's theorem does have implications for AI, but they are much more subtle than this.
Yes. Goedel's theorem is a mathematical proof.
What a pointless thing to say. A digital signal is by definition a signal on which information has been encoded digitally. An analog signal is similarly a signal on which information has been encoded via FM, AM, PM, etc.
Yeah, but what we're talking about here isn't really an 'HDTV tuner' in the conventional sense. It's not a box designed to deliver HD-quality video to a monitor that can display it. It is a box designed to deliver a conventional NTSC analog signal to an old TV. The box needs to be as cheap as possible, to support the large market of people with old TVs that need to be adapted to receive digital broadcasts. I would expect these adaptors to include an RF converter. They probably won't include any connections more advanced than a composite or perhaps an S-video output.
RTFA. It apparently works for incoming calls too. Presumably their software automatically dials your preprogrammed cell number when an incoming call comes in via Skype.
More specifically, Einstein was expressing his discomfort with the inherent, non-deterministic randomness that occurs in Quantum Mechanics. It is noteworthy that Einstein is now well established to have been wrong on this point. God, in fact, does play dice.
One example: some recessive genes (those requiring two copies for full expression) cause serious genetic disorders when you inherit two copies, but a slight survival advantage if you inherit only one copy. IIRC, cystic fibrosis and sickle cell anemia both fall into this category, with single copies of the abnormal gene conferring improved survival against cholera and malaria, respectively. The slight increase in survival of the many individuals who inherit one copy of the gene more than makes up for the greatly decreased survival of those who inherit two copies, and natural selection ensures that the gene remains in the gene pool (but ensures that the percentage of individuals with that gene also does not become too high).
I have no idea if a 'gay gene' if such a thing exists would fall into this category, but there are other ways that a gene that appears to confer a survival/reproduction disadvantage can persist in the gene pool without being selected out. Note also that it is not true that "Gays don't naturally reproduce". There are many gay people with children.
Oops, never mind. It turns out I'm wrong. Rotating frames are not completely relative in GR, unlike linearly-accelerated frames. So, my comments on inertia vs. gravity are true, but the argument does not apply to centrifugal force.
Note that I picked gravity as an example for a good reason here. The apparent downward force you feel in an accelerating reference frame is indistinguishable from gravity in GR. In classical physics, this force would be considered 'fictitious' for the same reason the centrifugal force is--it's just a manifestation of your inertia, viewed from a non-stationary reference frame. Einstein showed that in fact this 'fictitious' force actually is gravity--there is no difference between this force and the more familiar force we feel due to the pull of massive objects.
I'm a physicist. Trust me, there is plenty of mystery in both quantum mechanics and relativity. Both are complicated and definitely counter-intuitive. To the extent that the theories we have are created by us, yes there is no mystery there. The mystery lies (as always) in the real world, and in the things we do not yet understand. There is more physics waiting there for us to discover, and it's hard to tell what we might find.
To be fair, while Einstein often referred to God, it's not clear what his beliefs were and they can be construed to be metaphorical. This doesn't impact your main point, though. There are certainly many other scientists (past and present) who are also religious, and who see the wonder of the universe as more evidence of the greatness of God.
I think Sagan's view may be a little too narrow here. There is certainly a long history of Christian scientists and philosophers who have looked at the universe and nature with awe and seen the handiwork of God there. My God is a big god. A God who created a Universe that is vaster than we can possibly imagine, with more worlds than we can count. A God who created the beauty and mystery of quantum mechanics, and relativity. We are God's children, but I have little doubt that in this vast universe God has other children. Maybe we will meet them someday, in this life or the next. I hope so.
For that matter, even if there were intelligent life on other planets it doesn't necessarily smash the idea of humans having been created 'in the image of God'. Many, if not most, modern Christians do not interpret 'in the image of God' to mean a physical image. We are created in God's image in the sense that we have a capacity to know, to understand, to love, and to do good. God can pretty clearly take on any physical form he likes. It wouldn't be very meaningful to say that we are created in his image physically. So, it's quite possible that if we met intelligent aliens they might also be 'created in God's image', even if they look nothing like us.
I see. I kind of like the fact that tabs are completely under my (the user's) control. The web page designer controls most other things, but it's my choice whether I see any given link open in a new window or a new tab. Maybe it's better this way. It's also probably less confusing for the newbs.
Um, you do know that clicking with the middle button on a link causes it to open in a new tab, right? (At least in Firefox for Windows.)
Well, a litre of vodka is a lot less dangerous than a litre of gasoline. Or ether. Or several dozen other things.
I see. My mistake. I saw the photos and just assumed it was THz, since I knew some companies were working on that.
They do make a huge difference. Many people are not using Adblock or Flashblock. Firefox's built-in popup blocking was good at first, but the advertisers have clearly begun to adapt around it.
The popups typically occur if you have a default configuration of Firefox, have installed Flash, and aren't using any blocking extensions like FlashBlock or AdBlock. Your configuration must differ from the above.
It was still an outrageous decision. The fact that other restaurants serve coffee 20 degrees too cold should not make McDonald's liable merely for serving coffee at the optimum temperature for good taste. Hot coffee is supposed to be hot. It is the customer's responsibility to be aware of that and to handle it appropriately. The fact that she had serious burns from the incident is not McDonalds' problem, since the accident was her own damn fault.
They do have to at least seem to be manufacturer-sealed. If the bottle has been opened they aren't going to let you take it on the plane without additional checks to make sure it's not something dangerous.
It's not just low dosage, it's low frequency. These scanners use terahertz radiation AFAIK, which is non-ionizing. It's a very different thing from the radiation used to treat cancer.