Now, seriously, I want to believe that you are joking, but I don't have too much faith in people, so...
The thing is that we know how the brain works at a very low level, we could "copy" it in a couple of years, and with some new materials we could even do it in less space than that of an actual brain, but the question is if it would be practical to do so. Computers circuits are made to do tasks. To be programed with pseudo logic, to do what we want, and in this their are more efficient than a real brain, which is made to do nothing specific and does mainly random things.
OK, I know most of you are going to hate me for this, but English is a live language, words change meaning constantly, get over it already. I myself don't like using the word hacker to describe a computer criminal, but I don't go around wrongly correcting people when they do.
Hacker is used by 99% (and I'm being generous) of people to describe a computer criminal. Is a synonym of computer criminal, according to most sources, including the Britannica (I can feel your hateful eyes on me now).
Words are just conventions, if 99% of the English speaking people (and even those who don't speak English) use Hacker as computer criminal, then it IS computer criminal. No matter what meanings it has previously had or what the 0.1% of an intelectual elite like to call themselves.
Yay! Who is up for banning North Korea from the net?
Seriously now, that idea... Besides being technically and conceptually ludicrous, that's the equivalent of saying that people below certain IQ level should be banned from voting, writing or appearing on TV...
Hmm OK, maybe not a bad idea, better yet, lets isolate every country on its own "Internet" network, that way no country is ever going to bother other country with its religious/ideological/social/economical differences. So we should need some kind of passport to be able to visit other country's internet.
Well, the event horizon is spherical, that we know. Which could suggest that the actual matter inside is ordered in an spherical kind of way (if it has any volume at all). But the thing is that we don't know, just a while ago we where certain that the only thing that we could ever really know about a black hole are the characteristics of its event horizon (mass, angular momentum and electric charge).
Its just called "event horizon" because the only fastest way that information of an event can travel is the speed of light (in the form of... light!;P). So if even light cannot scape, then we can never ever know anything of the insides of the event horizon, some quantum theorists would say that since we (or anyone or anything, even if you where alive in the inside) can ever know the inside, it doest exist, so a black hole is ONLY its mass, angular momentum and electric charge.
However just very little time ago Hawkings said that we *could* theoretically know what is inside because of the quantum's effect on the edges of the event horizon (the quantum's particles inside the event horizon could change the particles outside). So THEORETICALLY there is a way of knowing what is inside of a black hole because, thanks to those little quantum devils, a real event horizon never forms.
Anyway, no one knows if we (or anyone or anything) could ever hope to develop some technology capable of "seeing" inside of a black hole (the quantum effect would be in the very edges, so to collect information of the inside of a black hole, you would still need to travel at the speed of light (or so close to it that it wouldn't matter).
I would say that its almost certain that in some really far (as a couple of ups in the kardashev scale far) future we could have the energy requirements for proving or disproving the string "theory" before having the energy requirements for retrieving information from a black hole.
What I meant is that String theory is falsiable, even Woit agrees with that. The matter is that with our current technology we can't do it.
So it may not be a real theory (they insist on calling it a theory because it predicts gravity, but st is part of a paradigm in wich gravity is an existing theory), but it is scientific.
more info in the discution at the bottom of cosmicvariance.com
http://cosmicvariance.com/2006/06/19/the-string-th eory-backlash/
btw, Sorry about that, yes it was a semantics issue. Its odd, but in american english it seems that science is meant most of the time only as the natural sciences. I didn't knew that:P
No one is saying that st isn't testable, just that it would be wildly impractical to test it.
Just suppose that we become a type 3 civilization in the kardashev scale. Then we would count with the energy needed to prove or disprove the string theory (even if an advance in string theory itself that would provide a better way to verify it doesn't occur).
So if we are saying that in the current theoretical state, given the resources, we could contrast st, then it is science. The fact that we don't have such resources doesn't means that it isn't science, just that it is a hypothesis instead of a theory.
btw, math IS a science, allways
Well, one of the basic differences between science and religion, is that every science paradigm is based on a system of scientific theories. String Theory fully complies with that, Intelligent Design couldn't be farther away.
Note that im not saying string theory is actually a scientific theory (though as some others have pointed out, I agree that it is scientific, just not quite a theory yet)
Im not a fan of String "Theory", but it is an interesting hypothesis and even if it turns out to be wrong, it still has provided us with more mathematical tools than every other sciences combined in the same amount of time, just for that its worth researching.
But it still might prove to solve some of the greatest problems in modern physics, and be it right or wrong, it wont be a wast of time, so why not give it a shot?
It is not something that WOW or any other generic MMORPG invents, that is the way that our culture see things, through the average middle class worker. If you have to invest more time creating something then its got to be worth more than the something other person did in less time, otherwise is a waste of personal resources.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, that explains it then, god uses DRM!
Now, seriously, I want to believe that you are joking, but I don't have too much faith in people, so...
The thing is that we know how the brain works at a very low level, we could "copy" it in a couple of years, and with some new materials we could even do it in less space than that of an actual brain, but the question is if it would be practical to do so.
Computers circuits are made to do tasks. To be programed with pseudo logic, to do what we want, and in this their are more efficient than a real brain, which is made to do nothing specific and does mainly random things.
What do you think organizations are made of? soylent green? (and don't spoil the friggin end of the movie)
You do know that countries have people inside right? Or are you suggesting that people in undeveloped countries should move to use internet?
OK, I know most of you are going to hate me for this, but English is a live language, words change meaning constantly, get over it already. I myself don't like using the word hacker to describe a computer criminal, but I don't go around wrongly correcting people when they do.
Hacker is used by 99% (and I'm being generous) of people to describe a computer criminal. Is a synonym of computer criminal, according to most sources, including the Britannica (I can feel your hateful eyes on me now).
Words are just conventions, if 99% of the English speaking people (and even those who don't speak English) use Hacker as computer criminal, then it IS computer criminal. No matter what meanings it has previously had or what the 0.1% of an intelectual elite like to call themselves.
Yay! Who is up for banning North Korea from the net?
Seriously now, that idea... Besides being technically and conceptually ludicrous, that's the equivalent of saying that people below certain IQ level should be banned from voting, writing or appearing on TV...
Hmm OK, maybe not a bad idea, better yet, lets isolate every country on its own "Internet" network, that way no country is ever going to bother other country with its religious/ideological/social/economical differences. So we should need some kind of passport to be able to visit other country's internet.
Well, the event horizon is spherical, that we know. Which could suggest that the actual matter inside is ordered in an spherical kind of way (if it has any volume at all).
... light! ;P). So if even light cannot scape, then we can never ever know anything of the insides of the event horizon, some quantum theorists would say that since we (or anyone or anything, even if you where alive in the inside) can ever know the inside, it doest exist, so a black hole is ONLY its mass, angular momentum and electric charge.
But the thing is that we don't know, just a while ago we where certain that the only thing that we could ever really know about a black hole are the characteristics of its event horizon (mass, angular momentum and electric charge).
Its just called "event horizon" because the only fastest way that information of an event can travel is the speed of light (in the form of
However just very little time ago Hawkings said that we *could* theoretically know what is inside because of the quantum's effect on the edges of the event horizon (the quantum's particles inside the event horizon could change the particles outside). So THEORETICALLY there is a way of knowing what is inside of a black hole because, thanks to those little quantum devils, a real event horizon never forms.
Anyway, no one knows if we (or anyone or anything) could ever hope to develop some technology capable of "seeing" inside of a black hole (the quantum effect would be in the very edges, so to collect information of the inside of a black hole, you would still need to travel at the speed of light (or so close to it that it wouldn't matter).
I would say that its almost certain that in some really far (as a couple of ups in the kardashev scale far) future we could have the energy requirements for proving or disproving the string "theory" before having the energy requirements for retrieving information from a black hole.
What I meant is that String theory is falsiable, even Woit agrees with that. The matter is that with our current technology we can't do it. So it may not be a real theory (they insist on calling it a theory because it predicts gravity, but st is part of a paradigm in wich gravity is an existing theory), but it is scientific. more info in the discution at the bottom of cosmicvariance.com http://cosmicvariance.com/2006/06/19/the-string-th eory-backlash/
btw, Sorry about that, yes it was a semantics issue. Its odd, but in american english it seems that science is meant most of the time only as the natural sciences. I didn't knew that :P
No one is saying that st isn't testable, just that it would be wildly impractical to test it. Just suppose that we become a type 3 civilization in the kardashev scale. Then we would count with the energy needed to prove or disprove the string theory (even if an advance in string theory itself that would provide a better way to verify it doesn't occur). So if we are saying that in the current theoretical state, given the resources, we could contrast st, then it is science. The fact that we don't have such resources doesn't means that it isn't science, just that it is a hypothesis instead of a theory. btw, math IS a science, allways
You must also prove your hypothesis a finite number of times.
Well, one of the basic differences between science and religion, is that every science paradigm is based on a system of scientific theories.
String Theory fully complies with that, Intelligent Design couldn't be farther away.
Note that im not saying string theory is actually a scientific theory (though as some others have pointed out, I agree that it is scientific, just not quite a theory yet)
Im not a fan of String "Theory", but it is an interesting hypothesis and even if it turns out to be wrong, it still has provided us with more mathematical tools than every other sciences combined in the same amount of time, just for that its worth researching.
But it still might prove to solve some of the greatest problems in modern physics, and be it right or wrong, it wont be a wast of time, so why not give it a shot?
Let it bee let it beee let it beee oh let it beeeee -aslongasitdoesntdestroythewholeuniverse- let it beeeeeee eeee
It is not something that WOW or any other generic MMORPG invents, that is the way that our culture see things, through the average middle class worker. If you have to invest more time creating something then its got to be worth more than the something other person did in less time, otherwise is a waste of personal resources.