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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Apr 10, 2015 - 06:31pm PT
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One of their conclusion was that most researchers were conflating stimulaus response systems with sentience
Whose conclusion?
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Apr 10, 2015 - 06:55pm PT
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A few guys and girls over at Caltech: If sentience is an emergent function of the brain, and if all brain functions are strictly mechanical, as materialism suggests, then we can, at least as a thought experiment, move toward the end-game of machine sentience and start writing a bit of code to get the ball rolling.
P.S. That's a ridiculous statement. An 'end-game' as a thought experiment? WTF, they don't have any game at all let alone a starting-game or an 'end-game'; they have a philosophical assumption. And "start writing a bit of code"? To what? That assumption? No one I know writes code to philosophical assumptions. It's like saying I'm going to assume there are Unicorns and so we can jump to the end-game of synthetically assembling their genome. It's not a white elephant - it's a facetious strawman - surely you and they can do better and hopefully they have tenure.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Apr 10, 2015 - 08:35pm PT
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. . . perhaps at least take heed of a few guys and girls over at Caltech . . .
I think this is supposed to excite a sense of awe amongst the readers of this post, for this is not the first instance the reference to these prodigies has been dangled before our innocent eyes. It may be instructive to recall that some time ago one of these individuals made confident but spurious comments about elementary topology, and I (and perhaps others) caught the errors.
Thought experiment? A fundamental flaw in many arguments, not simply those expressed here, is that something really cannot be done if it hasn't been done to this point in time and no one knows where to start. Give science a few more years before calling it quits.
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jstan
climber
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Apr 11, 2015 - 01:09pm PT
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What is it that the internet offers us here? We are afforded an unparalleled opportunity to know others. If Freud had had the internet he might have accomplished much. Before the internet the chance really to know persons of achievement like Prof. Gill, Dr. Hartouni and Mr. Bachar, was nil. This chance, now, seems to be waning.
We still have not figured out why it is coming to this. Time to think about it.
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Apr 11, 2015 - 01:23pm PT
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This chance, now, seems to be waning.
We still have not figured out why it is coming to this. Time to think about it.
I fail to understand what is being talked about here?
Individuals arrive on this particular thread to exchange ideas, argue, and perhaps advance creative efforts.
What has changed in some fundamental way?
The last time I checked there was no nuclear war or famine going on (Although in California the price of a glass of water is skyrocketing)
The comments above seem to have us reaching the bottom of a bag of potato chips having to turn it bottom-up to get the last remaining fragments but getting a mouthful of salt instead.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Apr 11, 2015 - 09:50pm PT
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Dr. jstan and Dr. Ed are our resident and accomplished physicists (are there others here?) and I hope they will hang around to guide conversations in that esoteric realm.
Thank you, gentlemen!
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cintune
climber
The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen
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Apr 12, 2015 - 07:08pm PT
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Apr 12, 2015 - 07:52pm PT
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Cintune,
hey, you've been chosen. Start a new thread, something like...
Science, the School of Life and Belief.
The time is right. As I'm sure you know. An added plus...
your name would look great up on the marquee!!!
PS
Of course I'll try to contribute!
.....
Considering animals, check this out...
Loneliest whale in the world.
Sad.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Apr 12, 2015 - 08:25pm PT
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Sad.
Assumption based on anthropomorphism.
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WBraun
climber
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Apr 12, 2015 - 08:51pm PT
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What is "Mind?"
Instead they're talking about monkeys and whales.
This shows that the uncontrolled mind is always accepting, rejecting and wandering everywhere like a horse without a rider and reins.
It shows like the foolish monk who when he came to the stream with the senior monk who carried the beautiful woman across the stream and then set her down.
The foolish monk who had no control of his mind said to the senior monk after some distance from the stream.
We monks have nothing to do with women.
The senior monk said; "Why are you still carrying her" ......
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Apr 12, 2015 - 08:58pm PT
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ghostly wraiths . . . moribund
Attn sullly: Good for minds . . .
Shakespeare & Science
Liven things up, please.
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cintune
climber
The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen
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Apr 13, 2015 - 09:55am PT
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TWP
Trad climber
Mancos, CO & Bend, OR
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Apr 13, 2015 - 10:03am PT
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Amazing!
A cartoon featuring our man, Werner Herr Duck
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Apr 13, 2015 - 05:44pm PT
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Jgill: Thought experiment? A fundamental flaw in many arguments, not simply those expressed here, is that something really cannot be done if it hasn't been done to this point in time and no one knows where to start. Give science a few more years before calling it quits.
How much time do you think, John? Observations have been funding theories and speculation for 2 millennia.
Your comment makes me wonder what a basis for arrogance would be. What would distinguish it from imagination, a positive attitude, or simply an intense desire?
If ye be a true scientist, then ye must read the tea leaves as they are, not as ye would want them to be. Ye need be skeptical—and from Missouri.
:-)
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Apr 13, 2015 - 06:17pm PT
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How much time do you think, John?
Speculations that have not been rigorously debunked should remain within the realm of exploration and possibility ad infinitum.
For example, the possibility of multiple universes, since Ed commented that this speculation made little difference in applied physics. I happen to favor the multiverse proposition, having played with infinities for some time. It may be that this phenomenon has more to do with "What is Mind" than traditional physics.
Even Largo's argument that all "reduces to no physical extent" should be entertained, although an insistence that it must be the case is not warranted.
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jstan
climber
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Apr 13, 2015 - 10:19pm PT
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We still have not figured out why it is coming to this. Time to think about it.
Maybe its time you checked on out of here, jstan. You keep telling us we're blowing it. I
don't see you bringing much to the dance either.
Put up or shut up. No more laurel-gagging. What you got Holmes?
Normally DMT has been one of the more temperate and upbeat people on the site. I have to
conclude his post above was made, tongue in cheek, to support my suggestion we can do
better.
My experience has been that proposing answers before people have digested the questions
causes only dispute leading nowhere. The first task is to give visibility to questions.
I have the feeling the last one or two years saw increased emotion and bannings that made
us all quite uncomfortable. Somehow we don't seem to be on a path anymore. And recent
policies, whatever their actual effects, have made an already sore point, worse.
I also think ST cannot be considered an island unaffected by the growing political
dysfunction in our culture. That said, life can never be more than an effort to work with what we
have.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Apr 13, 2015 - 10:27pm PT
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Jstan:
You da man.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Apr 13, 2015 - 10:30pm PT
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Jgill:
Hey, buddy, friend, look what you’re doing there. You’re leaving the reservation. You’re in the realm of what you don’t know, yet you’re talking about it as though it were something. I think what you’ve been arguing all along is, “let’s be careful out there.”
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WBraun
climber
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Apr 13, 2015 - 10:39pm PT
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5560 posts.
Billions and billions and billions spent.
hundreds of years spent guessing.
Western gross material science has so far suffered catastrophic failures in a simple understanding of their own selves.
Their ultimate conclusion.
WE HAVE NO CLUE!
IN THE FUTURE WE WILL KNOW! (as they been saying for hundreds of years)
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