As someone who isn't a statistician, but uses statistics on a regular basis, the first question you always need to ask is can I trust the data. You need to run statistical tests on the data to see if it makes sense. You need to understand the problem first, and that data second.
If you can't tell if the data is fooling you you shouldn't be doing statistics on it.
So I guess I'd amend your proclamation to read: "The only thing worse than no data is data that the statistician couldn't tell was flawed."
What I want to know is who is it who does install Alexa? Is it only webmasters obsessed with, as the cmdr put it, pagerank ans seo? Or does it come preinstalled on some systems, or does it offer something of "value" i.e. screensavers and sparkly pointers, to the "average" user?
I've heard of it, and always just wondered why I'd want something like that.
Having biological and chemical weapons lying around is a liability waiting to happen. They're hard to control, and hard to account for. (Sir, the warehouse reports that we have 5,347,761 moles of VX gas available.)
Disposing of them is environmentally hazardous. For instance, you don't really know that much about the products of the disposal reaction. Check out one story about how the disposal is problematic. (check out how many related stories there are in the side bar.)
Besides, if we needed to, how hard would it be to make more?
You seem to place some value on philosophy and metaphysics, but you reject the concept of free will. What is the value of Plato's forms? Zoraster's dualism? Moses Maimonides' mysticism? Descarte's Cogito ergo sum? Berkeley's idealism?
Pick one or two (or add your own) and try to define them with physical characteristics. It can't be done. None of them have "implications, predictable interactions with matter, or so forth." Does that make them "bold arbitrary statements"? I've said before, if you want to throw out the whole of metaphysics we are at am impasse.
But do you want a definition of free will? I'm afraid it's going to have to be a negative definition, but here it goes: Free will is the act of selecting between to options, that is neither predetermined (causal) nor random. If you want to say that nothing falls into that category fine. It's when you say it's simply silly because it can't verified that I have a problem. Just because we can't test or verify a metaphysical concept doesn't make it silly, doesn't make it useless to think about.
You claim that, "I don't mind in theory the idea of supplying a metaphysical explanation," but object to, "a bunch of handwaving to cover up the reality that no explanation is forthcoming or even conceptually possible." Can you supply one metaphysical explanation to anything, that couldn't be objected to on the same grounds that you object to free will?
Free will and determinism are exactly as useful as any other metaphysical concept. If you happen to think metaphysics and philosophy are useless, then we'll have to agree to disagree.
But back to similarities between the physical and the metaphysical. Just because I can't make an a priori case for free will doesn't make it fundamentally useless. Really, tell me something about a vacuum assuming for a second there is no concept of matter. It can't be done in precisely the same way that free will can't be described assuming that there is no concept of determinism.
If an experiment to test humans for determinacy could be devised that could control all possible variables were to show humans to be non-determinant, you might still say that any differences are random, and thus not a free choice. Then we are again at an impasse for if you cannot determine the cause of the randomness, then what is it? And if you grant the use of the term deterministic, then what is the converse? At some point physical randomness gives way to metaphysical free choice, and no one will ever be able to put a finger on precisely where that is, but again it is exactly as useful as any other philosophical concept.
I keep bringing up Islam because Islamic theology dismisses free will, in that way it is fundamentally different from the Judeo-Christian heritage which requires free will. It starts with Adam and Eve, we exist in the state that we do, because they choose to eat the apple. The fact that it is an underpinning to philosophy of course doesn't make it valuable in itself. But this brings us back to the difference between the physical and the metaphysical. If you ask "why" enough times eventually a physical answer can't be found, either you are content with that, or you appeal to a (unprovable) metaphysical explanation. There's nothing wrong with stopping before you get there, but neither is there anything wrong with taking that step.
The question has nothing to do with determinism: we can imagine a non-deterministic universe/humans or any mix of the two, and free will still doesn't make any sense as a concept.
Well not quite, either the universe and humans are both deterministic, or they're both not. Subsets of the universe and human actions can be deterministic i.e. if I drop something it falls, and I can't choose to have my heart stop beating. But in totality its either one or the other, since we can effect changes in the physical world.
Now, the claim that humans are unlike this in some fundamental way (that they have something called "free will") is actually just a negative claim
Yes free will is defined as not deterministic, but that doesn't make it meaningless, just as dry is defined as not wet. It's also not a "non-concept." No, I can't tell you functionally what it is, what it does, or how it works, but neither can I tell you functionally what a vacuum is - again, not a meaningless concept.
There's no way to imagine a human being making a choice with "free will" enabled, and then imagining it with free-will disabled for a comparison
Of course not, because choice depends on free will, imagining making a choice with free will disabled is like imagining gravity without mass, the concepts are inextricably linked. But just because I can't imagine what gravity would be like in the absence of mass, doesn't make the concept of gravity useless.
a explanation will involve some description of how the choice was made (a particular choice instead of another) and thus trace the choice made back to some particular _nature_ of the chooser.
True, but that's what I mean when I say that free will is currently, and possibly perpetually untestable, the same could be said for string theory.
If there is no "why" for why agent 1 makes a different choice than agent 2 (and free will makes a "why" impossible not just in practice, but in theory, period) then on what possible basis are they to be judged. We have no way of assigning different responsibilities to different agents when there is no explanation, and can never have an explanation (because explanations would be anathema to free will), as to why one made a good choice and the other a bad choice. We're judging outcomes that have no actual causal links back to the agents that caused them.
On the contrary, free-will is necessary for (Judeo-Christian) conceptions of morality, only if we are free to choose are we responsible for our actions. In the absence of free will words like choose and responsible are devoid of meaning. That isn't to say, as someone else pointed out that in a deterministic state illusions of choice and responsibility could be utilitarian drivers, but on a philosophical level they are meaningless. Explanations, aren't an anathema to free will either, it is perfectly possible that we can be free rational decision makers e.g. I choose to go to work today because I like to get paid. We can judge free decisions based on consequentialist or deontilogical grounds.
To be fair it is possible to construct a philosophy without free will (as Islam has done e.g.) and neither system can (at least currently) be proven better than the other, but both can be internally logically consistent.
If I could write a compelling argument on why I can't answer the question I'd be doing better than most.
Recognizing that I'm a long way from hard science, here are a few things I think about intelligence:
It isn't emergent i.e. building a sufficiently complex machine isn't sufficient.
It could be, but isn't necessarily supernatural. There is no reason that intelligence can't both me natural and special, unique, or unreproducible.
Maybe, we could cultivate an intelligence if we could design a biological system to evolve over millions of generations. I'm not sure if that could be called artificial or emergent or not. For some reason I'm beholden to the idea that there's something special about our neurons, and simulations in silicon won't cut it, nor will a simple reconstruction using any materials.
My mind isn't closed on this matter, and I genuinely mean it when I say come back to me when there's a convincing AI. I see nothing to indicate that we're likely to make a breakthrough with the current path of research. My saying we're not going to be able to make an AI capable of passing a Turing test is like me saying we're not going to break the speed of light barrier. That is, based on (my understanding of) everything we know about the way the universe works, it shouldn't be possible.
Now, let me try to get at what you think.
If you can't separate a human from the billions of inputs we receive, how could you convincingly simulate one with out those billions of inputs? If a computer did have those billions of inputs we could conceivably log all of them. If we then reset the computer to its previous state, and replayed those same inputs would it invariably generate the same answer?
What do you think about the (apparent) uniqueness of every individual human, even identical twins? Do you think that is an illusion, or something real? If the latter do you think we could simulate that diversity?
That's easy - corrupt politicians.
Thats the most convincing argument I've heard for ceasing all AI research yet, and normally I support that kind of work.
We might be able to build a computer atom by atom, we might even be able to build an exact replica of a human brain, but that isn't even remotely useful. If you have an (extra) actual human brain, it isn't useful, because you can't hook it up to another body and expect it to work. Similarly, being able to build a brain atom by atom, and neuron, by neuron, does nothing unless you can plug it in and turn it on. I don't think we can get there.
Modeling a honeybees brain is great, but modeling an complex (intelligent) brain is a whole other ball of wax. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't think intelligence is an emergent phenomenon. A computer is a deterministic machine, so probably is a honeybee brain. I don't know how, but it would seem that our brains are different in kind, not just in scope.
Emotion is a pretty poor example of something computers could not do, it was just the first thing that popped into my head.
But about the backgammon learning computer: that's really neat, but not earth shattering, because backgammon is a perfect information game. It's a great accomplishment, but different in kind from telling a computer the rules of Texas Hold'em, putting it at a table with 7 (good) human players, and seeing who wins.
If an AI in a lab will look deterministic, why won't a human in a lab? If we ever can build an AI that passes the Turing test, I would think it would have to look non-deterministic, and I really don't think we will ever be able to do that.
For my final point I was getting at the fact that everybody is innately different, and nature (as opposed to nurture) plays a role. Even if we get to the point where we can understand why one twin acts differently from the other, I don't we could apply that understanding to computers. I don't think we will be able to "birth" computers with different innate personalities.
As for the ethics issue, rank these groups in order of dedication to ethics: philosophers, engineers, business men. Now, who do you think is going to make the call if it ever comes to developing ethical rules for machines?
It also could reduce the carbon footprint to zero if the energy spent processing and moving the fuel were extracted from algae produced bio-diesel, which is not out of the question.
Well then we just leave the 7,526 square kilometers of the Netherlands that contain:
Tulips, Cannabis, Absinthe, Prostitutes, (on a more serious note): Oil [shell.com], M. C. Escher [wikipedia.org], Vincent Van Gogh [vangoghmuseum.nl], Peace Treaties (a plurality, even) [wikipedia.org], and Really Nice Airlines [klm.com] that could benefit from this technology.
The question of whether we have free will isn't really abstract, it's just currently, and possibly perpetually untestable. At its core the question is just asking: "Do humans exist in a deterministic state?"
Our entire Judeo-Chritian world view revolves around answering that question no. I happen to think that the entire body of philosophy isn't "irrelevent," even if it can never unequivocally answer I single question. If you feel differently you're certainly entitled to your opinion.
(aside: While it's not fair to say that the entire Muslim world view revolves around answering that question yes, it is a fairly fundamental underpinning of Islamic society)
Isn't it more fun to assume our technology will progress to that point and figure these things out now? It's going to be especially useful to have figured out a set of ethics before we 'unleash the machines', so waiting could have bad consequences.
I'm all for the development of AI, I just don't think that we're ever going to get to a point where AI looks remotely like human intelligence. My thesis here is that any computer we are ever able to build will be a deterministic machine, and I don't think you can create something that thinks like a human out of a deterministic machine.
Having figured out the ethics would be awesome, but I don't really think we've made any progress on this in the history of philosophy, and I don't think we're likely to.
You should probably explain here the things that a brain does that a computer won't be able to do.
Sorry to answer a question with a question, but do you think human intelligence is more similar or more dissimilar to a computer? I'm on the more dissimilar side. If you agree on this point, then you should probably explain the ways in which a computer behaves like a human brain. Here's an easy one, do human brains and computers do math the same way? My understanding (I'm neither a software guy not a psychologist) is that humans and computers do math very differently.
But if I'm to explain things a brain does that I don't think a computer will be able to do, start with classic Star Trek: emotion. Back to the theme, I also think that the mind exists in a non-deterministic state, and I don't think a computer ever will. Finally, I don't think well ever be able to start computers in substantially different states (innate personality differences), similar to the way different human minds form differently.
As far as quantum biological computing and quantum computing with qubits, I think there is an fundamental difference regarding, once again, determinism. If you feed a quantum computer a problem, you might not be able to know the solution in advance (as is the case with classical computing,) but if you feed it the same problem again, it'll give you the same answer. If you feed a human the same problem multiple times the answer may differ. That may be do to imperfections in receiving or controlling inputs, but then again, it might be that the human mind doesn't work the same way every time - which points to a non-deterministic state.
X-Men movie but swap the DNA mutations for emo culture and hard metal/rock underground.
Seems like it could have been slightly better than X-Men 3
Batman movie without costumes and gadgets, about the struggles of a billionaire Bruce Wayne to increase his company revenue. James Bond prequel. Like, how his parents met up and married or something?
Sounds much better than Batman Forever or Batman and Robin
Star Wars movie set in the wild west.
Couldn't possibly be worse than Episodes 1-3
Jurassic Park, but instead of real dinosaurs, it turns out Dr. John Hammond hired ILM to make elaborate fake computer dinosaurs and escape abroad with hundreds of millions of investor funding.
Sounds like a much better idea than Jurassic park 2 or 3
Saw 4, where it turns out everything in Saw 1, 2, 3 was a dream sequence of a poor patient dying of cancer, and telling the story of a cancer patient finding true love in his last days of life.
Wasn't that the premise of all the Saws? So are you suggesting that Saw 4 would recap everything that happened earlier without adding anything substantive? I thought thats where the series was headed anyway.
As for the Toy Story one, I honestly can't make up my mind how I feel about that.
Sure, but that's partially my point, if consciousness can be created in a computer, that would be a strong indication that the brain is deterministic. Further, if we had an AI (presumably an AI is also a brain simulator) we could perform controlled experiments to determine whether or not the brain is deterministic.
Once that cat is out of the bag we can just go ahead and simulate the remainder of human existence.
We are no longer selecting for the fittest in quite the same way as was done while we were evolving. Now it's more like survival of the richest and most prolific.
Why oh why is slashdot the last bastion of social darwanism?
First, are you telling me there is a genetic reason why the rich are that way?
Second, are you telling me that the rich are the most prolific?
Humanity hasn't altered its evolution as you might like to think, if you live in a malaria infested region sickle-cell anemia still isn't such a bad thing.
Tell you what, get back to me when we figure out how to create an AI capable of passing a Turing Test.
Seriously, this isn't an out of hand dismissal. To say that the brain, or consciousness is somehow like a computer is, to me, more of a stretch than espousing an afterlife, or a soul.
Now I know that slashdot isn't likely to agree with me, and normally I'm loath to invoke a god-of-the-gaps, but if and when the time comes that we can fabricate intelligence in a box, we're going to have some serious rethinking of philosophy to do. Until then, I really do think that the burden to produce evidence lies with the mind-is-a-computer crowd, i.e. to me the mind looks a lot more unlike a computer than like it.
My major concern, how do we know that consciousness as we know it doesn't depend on some yet unknown quantum effects or isn't somehow governed by Godel's incompleteness theorem? In other words, is the brain deterministic? If the brain is deterministic then don't concepts of right and wrong go out the window?
Unfortunately, it's still more expensive than sugar ethanol (and gasoline) to create
Which is really the bit that matters. Maybe the cost of cellulosic EtOH will keep coming down, and the cost of gasoline will keep going up, but as long as we're talking about converting plant matter to fuel the economics looks like this biodiesel> sugar EtOH > cellulosic EtOH.
For you chemistry buffs here's why: All plants contain triglyceride, some (like algae and soy, and rapeseed contain lots of it) going from triglyceride to biodiesel looks like this: RCOO-CH2CH(-OOCR)CH2-OOCR -> 3RCOOEt
Sugar to EtOH looks like this: C6H12O6->CH3CH2OH
Now can someone spot why this one is different? Cellulose -> EtOH: (C6H10O5)n -> CH3CH2OH
That little n makes all the difference. It is much harder (read expensive, energy intensive, and/or sensitive) to make a polysaccharide into an alcohol than it is to make either a sugar into an alcohol or a triglyceride into an oil, which is precisely why we've known how to make oil from seed and alcohol from sugar for centuries, whereas we've just figured that maybe we can get something out of the chaff we've been throwing away forever. Sometimes its best to KISS, I am of the opinion we'd be better off just burning the cellulose to produce electricity.
You'll won't have much success in convincing them - play has to go in one direction for them to move forward.
I recognize all the words, I'm just having trouble understanding what they mean in that order. Oh, thats a whole paragraph from the article, it's also where I stopped reading
Generally speaking I'm with you, but I don't think the GOP is going to come crashing down. What I'm really praying for is a schism, where the religious right casts out the libertarian non-believers.
I really do think this split is inevitable, I just can't tell if it is going to happen by 2012 or 2020.
When the GOP can't count on the suburban doctor's vote because he feels some strange loyalty to Regan, then they might wake up and at least make an attempt at applying logic to their fiscal policies.
I think we could have a respectable debate between three parties, where O'Bama and Paul have a intelligent discourse, and ignore the rantings of Brownback.
Slashdot Mirror
As someone who isn't a statistician, but uses statistics on a regular basis, the first question you always need to ask is can I trust the data. You need to run statistical tests on the data to see if it makes sense. You need to understand the problem first, and that data second.
If you can't tell if the data is fooling you you shouldn't be doing statistics on it.
So I guess I'd amend your proclamation to read: "The only thing worse than no data is data that the statistician couldn't tell was flawed."
What I want to know is who is it who does install Alexa? Is it only webmasters obsessed with, as the cmdr put it, pagerank ans seo? Or does it come preinstalled on some systems, or does it offer something of "value" i.e. screensavers and sparkly pointers, to the "average" user?
I've heard of it, and always just wondered why I'd want something like that.
Not only that, but when they use the free passwords, it's not identity theft, it's identity infringement.
I'm not the OP, but I believe it.
Having biological and chemical weapons lying around is a liability waiting to happen. They're hard to control, and hard to account for. (Sir, the warehouse reports that we have 5,347,761 moles of VX gas available.)
Disposing of them is environmentally hazardous. For instance, you don't really know that much about the products of the disposal reaction. Check out one story about how the disposal is problematic. (check out how many related stories there are in the side bar.)
Besides, if we needed to, how hard would it be to make more?
You seem to place some value on philosophy and metaphysics, but you reject the concept of free will. What is the value of Plato's forms? Zoraster's dualism? Moses Maimonides' mysticism? Descarte's Cogito ergo sum? Berkeley's idealism?
Pick one or two (or add your own) and try to define them with physical characteristics. It can't be done. None of them have "implications, predictable interactions with matter, or so forth." Does that make them "bold arbitrary statements"? I've said before, if you want to throw out the whole of metaphysics we are at am impasse.
But do you want a definition of free will? I'm afraid it's going to have to be a negative definition, but here it goes: Free will is the act of selecting between to options, that is neither predetermined (causal) nor random. If you want to say that nothing falls into that category fine. It's when you say it's simply silly because it can't verified that I have a problem. Just because we can't test or verify a metaphysical concept doesn't make it silly, doesn't make it useless to think about.
You claim that, "I don't mind in theory the idea of supplying a metaphysical explanation," but object to, "a bunch of handwaving to cover up the reality that no explanation is forthcoming or even conceptually possible." Can you supply one metaphysical explanation to anything, that couldn't be objected to on the same grounds that you object to free will?
Free will and determinism are exactly as useful as any other metaphysical concept. If you happen to think metaphysics and philosophy are useless, then we'll have to agree to disagree.
But back to similarities between the physical and the metaphysical. Just because I can't make an a priori case for free will doesn't make it fundamentally useless. Really, tell me something about a vacuum assuming for a second there is no concept of matter. It can't be done in precisely the same way that free will can't be described assuming that there is no concept of determinism.
If an experiment to test humans for determinacy could be devised that could control all possible variables were to show humans to be non-determinant, you might still say that any differences are random, and thus not a free choice. Then we are again at an impasse for if you cannot determine the cause of the randomness, then what is it? And if you grant the use of the term deterministic, then what is the converse? At some point physical randomness gives way to metaphysical free choice, and no one will ever be able to put a finger on precisely where that is, but again it is exactly as useful as any other philosophical concept.
I keep bringing up Islam because Islamic theology dismisses free will, in that way it is fundamentally different from the Judeo-Christian heritage which requires free will. It starts with Adam and Eve, we exist in the state that we do, because they choose to eat the apple. The fact that it is an underpinning to philosophy of course doesn't make it valuable in itself. But this brings us back to the difference between the physical and the metaphysical. If you ask "why" enough times eventually a physical answer can't be found, either you are content with that, or you appeal to a (unprovable) metaphysical explanation. There's nothing wrong with stopping before you get there, but neither is there anything wrong with taking that step.
To be fair it is possible to construct a philosophy without free will (as Islam has done e.g.) and neither system can (at least currently) be proven better than the other, but both can be internally logically consistent.
If I could write a compelling argument on why I can't answer the question I'd be doing better than most.
Recognizing that I'm a long way from hard science, here are a few things I think about intelligence:
- It isn't emergent i.e. building a sufficiently complex machine isn't sufficient.
- It could be, but isn't necessarily supernatural. There is no reason that intelligence can't both me natural and special, unique, or unreproducible.
Maybe, we could cultivate an intelligence if we could design a biological system to evolve over millions of generations. I'm not sure if that could be called artificial or emergent or not. For some reason I'm beholden to the idea that there's something special about our neurons, and simulations in silicon won't cut it, nor will a simple reconstruction using any materials.My mind isn't closed on this matter, and I genuinely mean it when I say come back to me when there's a convincing AI. I see nothing to indicate that we're likely to make a breakthrough with the current path of research. My saying we're not going to be able to make an AI capable of passing a Turing test is like me saying we're not going to break the speed of light barrier. That is, based on (my understanding of) everything we know about the way the universe works, it shouldn't be possible.
Now, let me try to get at what you think.
If you can't separate a human from the billions of inputs we receive, how could you convincingly simulate one with out those billions of inputs? If a computer did have those billions of inputs we could conceivably log all of them. If we then reset the computer to its previous state, and replayed those same inputs would it invariably generate the same answer?
What do you think about the (apparent) uniqueness of every individual human, even identical twins? Do you think that is an illusion, or something real? If the latter do you think we could simulate that diversity?Thats the most convincing argument I've heard for ceasing all AI research yet, and normally I support that kind of work.
We might be able to build a computer atom by atom, we might even be able to build an exact replica of a human brain, but that isn't even remotely useful. If you have an (extra) actual human brain, it isn't useful, because you can't hook it up to another body and expect it to work. Similarly, being able to build a brain atom by atom, and neuron, by neuron, does nothing unless you can plug it in and turn it on. I don't think we can get there.
Modeling a honeybees brain is great, but modeling an complex (intelligent) brain is a whole other ball of wax. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't think intelligence is an emergent phenomenon. A computer is a deterministic machine, so probably is a honeybee brain. I don't know how, but it would seem that our brains are different in kind, not just in scope.
Emotion is a pretty poor example of something computers could not do, it was just the first thing that popped into my head.
But about the backgammon learning computer: that's really neat, but not earth shattering, because backgammon is a perfect information game. It's a great accomplishment, but different in kind from telling a computer the rules of Texas Hold'em, putting it at a table with 7 (good) human players, and seeing who wins.
If an AI in a lab will look deterministic, why won't a human in a lab? If we ever can build an AI that passes the Turing test, I would think it would have to look non-deterministic, and I really don't think we will ever be able to do that.
For my final point I was getting at the fact that everybody is innately different, and nature (as opposed to nurture) plays a role. Even if we get to the point where we can understand why one twin acts differently from the other, I don't we could apply that understanding to computers. I don't think we will be able to "birth" computers with different innate personalities.
As for the ethics issue, rank these groups in order of dedication to ethics: philosophers, engineers, business men. Now, who do you think is going to make the call if it ever comes to developing ethical rules for machines?
It also could reduce the carbon footprint to zero if the energy spent processing and moving the fuel were extracted from algae produced bio-diesel, which is not out of the question.
Did anyone else just think: .
..
...
Los Angeles had wetlands?
Los Angeles gets hurricanes?
Los Angeles contributes to the US's energy needs?
Ohhhhh that LA
The question of whether we have free will isn't really abstract, it's just currently, and possibly perpetually untestable. At its core the question is just asking: "Do humans exist in a deterministic state?"
Our entire Judeo-Chritian world view revolves around answering that question no. I happen to think that the entire body of philosophy isn't "irrelevent," even if it can never unequivocally answer I single question. If you feel differently you're certainly entitled to your opinion.
(aside: While it's not fair to say that the entire Muslim world view revolves around answering that question yes, it is a fairly fundamental underpinning of Islamic society)
Having figured out the ethics would be awesome, but I don't really think we've made any progress on this in the history of philosophy, and I don't think we're likely to.Sorry to answer a question with a question, but do you think human intelligence is more similar or more dissimilar to a computer? I'm on the more dissimilar side. If you agree on this point, then you should probably explain the ways in which a computer behaves like a human brain. Here's an easy one, do human brains and computers do math the same way? My understanding (I'm neither a software guy not a psychologist) is that humans and computers do math very differently.
But if I'm to explain things a brain does that I don't think a computer will be able to do, start with classic Star Trek: emotion. Back to the theme, I also think that the mind exists in a non-deterministic state, and I don't think a computer ever will. Finally, I don't think well ever be able to start computers in substantially different states (innate personality differences), similar to the way different human minds form differently.
As far as quantum biological computing and quantum computing with qubits, I think there is an fundamental difference regarding, once again, determinism. If you feed a quantum computer a problem, you might not be able to know the solution in advance (as is the case with classical computing,) but if you feed it the same problem again, it'll give you the same answer. If you feed a human the same problem multiple times the answer may differ. That may be do to imperfections in receiving or controlling inputs, but then again, it might be that the human mind doesn't work the same way every time - which points to a non-deterministic state.
As for the Toy Story one, I honestly can't make up my mind how I feel about that.
Sure, but that's partially my point, if consciousness can be created in a computer, that would be a strong indication that the brain is deterministic. Further, if we had an AI (presumably an AI is also a brain simulator) we could perform controlled experiments to determine whether or not the brain is deterministic.
Once that cat is out of the bag we can just go ahead and simulate the remainder of human existence.
First, are you telling me there is a genetic reason why the rich are that way?
Second, are you telling me that the rich are the most prolific?
Humanity hasn't altered its evolution as you might like to think, if you live in a malaria infested region sickle-cell anemia still isn't such a bad thing.
Yeah, no free society has ever recovered from something like this before. If only we could come up with a catchy name. How about Red Scare?
Look, I'm not defending whats happening, but it is hardly the end of a free and prosperous society.
Tell you what, get back to me when we figure out how to create an AI capable of passing a Turing Test.
Seriously, this isn't an out of hand dismissal. To say that the brain, or consciousness is somehow like a computer is, to me, more of a stretch than espousing an afterlife, or a soul.
Now I know that slashdot isn't likely to agree with me, and normally I'm loath to invoke a god-of-the-gaps, but if and when the time comes that we can fabricate intelligence in a box, we're going to have some serious rethinking of philosophy to do. Until then, I really do think that the burden to produce evidence lies with the mind-is-a-computer crowd, i.e. to me the mind looks a lot more unlike a computer than like it.
My major concern, how do we know that consciousness as we know it doesn't depend on some yet unknown quantum effects or isn't somehow governed by Godel's incompleteness theorem? In other words, is the brain deterministic? If the brain is deterministic then don't concepts of right and wrong go out the window?
Gee, it's almost as if certain professions make more money than others even controlling for education and job difficulty.
I don't know why anyone hasn't noticed this before.
Illustration #47 of how the US is China's bitch.
For you chemistry buffs here's why:
All plants contain triglyceride, some (like algae and soy, and rapeseed contain lots of it) going from triglyceride to biodiesel looks like this: RCOO-CH2CH(-OOCR)CH2-OOCR -> 3RCOOEt
Sugar to EtOH looks like this: C6H12O6->CH3CH2OH
Now can someone spot why this one is different? Cellulose -> EtOH: (C6H10O5)n -> CH3CH2OH
That little n makes all the difference. It is much harder (read expensive, energy intensive, and/or sensitive) to make a polysaccharide into an alcohol than it is to make either a sugar into an alcohol or a triglyceride into an oil, which is precisely why we've known how to make oil from seed and alcohol from sugar for centuries, whereas we've just figured that maybe we can get something out of the chaff we've been throwing away forever. Sometimes its best to KISS, I am of the opinion we'd be better off just burning the cellulose to produce electricity.
BTW, could someone explain to me what this means: I recognize all the words, I'm just having trouble understanding what they mean in that order. Oh, thats a whole paragraph from the article, it's also where I stopped reading
Yeah, in the last inter-racial draft. Haven't you been paying attention?
Generally speaking I'm with you, but I don't think the GOP is going to come crashing down. What I'm really praying for is a schism, where the religious right casts out the libertarian non-believers.
I really do think this split is inevitable, I just can't tell if it is going to happen by 2012 or 2020.
When the GOP can't count on the suburban doctor's vote because he feels some strange loyalty to Regan, then they might wake up and at least make an attempt at applying logic to their fiscal policies.
I think we could have a respectable debate between three parties, where O'Bama and Paul have a intelligent discourse, and ignore the rantings of Brownback.