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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Jun 13, 2015 - 11:19pm PT
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BB: . . . And the ultimate expression would be to lay down one's own life for that of another,. . .
Seen this up close and personal. There’s no description from either side. Everyone is like, “WTF???” Totally mysterious. You can come up with all sorts of psychological explanations or such, but the power of the experience is . . . pfffttttt! :-)
A friend of mine recently said, that a person was able to understand on a “need to know” basis. And that there was no need to know. Knowing only got in the way of the radiance, the grace, the full-on experience. Indeed, there is no need to know to be.
Jgill: You and JL talk about scientists and engineers "reverse engineering" processes and how futile this practice is.
I don’t mean to say that it’s futile. It just can’t be completed or achieved. The process itself is productive; it’s is everything! There is no end to the process. There is no final point or destination. Stay with the process and push on it.
[Perhaps} you would expand on the relationships between smart and imaginative. The smartest mathematicians I know are very imaginative as well.
I’m sure you’re right. I’m questioning what “smart” means or is. If it’s IQ or such not, I am not impressed. Smart is tapping into the whole person—light and dark, emotional and intellectual, rational and irrational, mystical and sensible, etc. What seems to matter is a holistic being, a fullness of perception, a reed among a wind of preference, some-who or -what that is not quite there, something or someone with an understanding of style (how versus what), a being that has no where to go and nothing to do.
A f*cking stake in the ground.
Paul: How is it that evolution does not favor the perception of reality?
This is a helluva good question.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Jun 14, 2015 - 07:18am PT
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Jan, good to hear you liked the Pinker Wright interview.
Speaking of which, here's the part of the interview edited down to just the hard problem of consciousness / sentience ("the crux of the biscuit") that came at the very end of the one-hour plus discussion.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYYzPPsUxDQ
Very apropos to this thread, I think.
"Our minds evolved by natural selection to solve problems that were life and death matters to our ancestors - not to commune with correctness or to answer any question we are capable of asking. We cannot hold ten thousand words in short term memory; we cannot see in ultraviolet light; we cannot mentally rotate an object in the fourth dimension. And perhaps we cannot solve conundrums like free will and sentience."
How the Mind Works
Steven Pinker
"People consider evolutionary psychology kind of dispiriting in a lot of ways. Maybe people don't understand it entirely. But one sense in which I think it has almost the opposite effect is to remind us that maybe we should be a little humble about our ability to dismiss philosophical questions. I mean we just don't get everything. We probably by nature can't. And I think with respect to sentience I mean it's possible there are metaphysical laws - not in the Shirley Maclaine sense of metaphysics but in the once-respectable sense of metaphysics - that we just perhaps will never comprehend." -Robert Wright
.....
BREAKING!
Philae comet lander wakes up!!
How cool is that?!!!!
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Jun 14, 2015 - 08:46am PT
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My students this term have just watched their first video on human evolution by Louise Leakey, and several of them have commented that they had no idea that there had been other forms of humans on the planet before us let alone several at the same time. They were completely intrigued and awed and humbled, and somewhat outraged that this was the first time they had been exposed to such information. They all felt it caused them to value human life more rather than less and to put more responsibility on Homo sapiens as the most intelligent surviving species. (These were unsolicited comments).
Of course several are trying to reconcile this new information with their religious traditions. The Catholics in particular were amazed to hear that the Catholic Church is not against the teaching of evolution since they were graduates of Catholic high schools and it was never mentioned. So far the general consensus is that one just has to push back causation somewhat further to the Big Bang and think of evolution as part of the Grand Design, and that the religious ethics they were taught still apply but should also now be added to animals.
As tvash was always saying, don't write the younger generation off.
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jstan
climber
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Jun 14, 2015 - 08:50am PT
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Seems to me there is no problem understanding consciousness' utility. Each day we face various threats to ourselves. Consciousness allows us to draw the barrier separating us from the world. We, therefore, know what it is we have to protect. If someone throws a rock at me I would want to know what is me and what is not.
Edit:
If this proves to define consciousness then any creature which acts to avoid danger, has consciousness.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Jun 14, 2015 - 09:32am PT
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and that the religious ethics they were taught still apply but should also now be added to animals.
Jan, that's an interesting statement. Do you have any meaning you might add for clarity?
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jun 14, 2015 - 10:14am PT
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"People consider evolutionary psychology kind of dispiriting in a lot of ways. Maybe people don't understand it entirely. But one sense in which I think it has almost the opposite effect is to remind us that maybe we should be a little humble about our ability to dismiss philosophical questions. I mean we just don't get everything. We probably by nature can't. And I think with respect to sentience I mean it's possible there are metaphysical laws - not in the Shirley Maclaine sense of metaphysics but in the once-respectable sense of metaphysics - that we just perhaps will never comprehend." -Robert Wright
I wouldn't disagree with this, though he seems to back peddle a bit, perhaps protecting his reputation by sniping at Shirley Maclaine.
You all should watch the video with Donald Hoffman I posted up thread. Science confronting the limitations of its methodology? Perhaps. Certainly being and sentience as more mysterious and strange than anyone might imagine.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jun 14, 2015 - 11:37am PT
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THE PROCESS OF SENTIENCE, THE TECHNICAL COMPONENTS OF PERCEPTION AVAILABLE TO KEEN EMPIRICAL OBSERVATION
so "the process of sentience" is an objective "thing" and is defined by the attributes:
AWARENESS, FOCUS AND ATTENTION
Let's stay on this for a bit. In particular, your theory of "the process of sentience" [tPoS] relies on our definition of those attributes.
HOWEVER THIS OBJECTIVE STUDY WILL NOT BETRAY THE EXPERIENTIAL, TECHNICAL (NOT CONTENT) COMPONENTS OF SELF-AWARENESS OR SENTIENCE, WHICH ARE NOT THEMSELVES COMPUTATIONS. A MACHINE MODEL OF SENTIENCE CAN ONLY POSIT AWARENESS, FOR EXAMPLE, AS (IE - the act or action of computing : calculation; the use or operation of a computer; a system of reckoning; an amount computed). ALL OF THESE DEFINITIONS INVOLVED CONTENT THAT IS BEING COMPUTED. BUT AWARENESS ITSELF NEED NOT BE TIED TO CONTENT, SOMETHING WE CAN NEVER HOPE TO UNDERSTAND NOR YET GRASP BY SIMPLY LOOKING AT NEURO FUNCTIONING (COMPUTATIONS). FOR THIS AND OTHER REASONS, SENTIENCE ITSELF, ON ITS OWN TERMS, IN THE EXPERIENTIAL REALM WHERE IT ACTUALLY EXISTS, MUST BE THE STARTING POINT.
let's presume that we have your tPoC down so well that we are able to "understand" the phenomenon, and by that I mean we have a useful theory that allows us "predict" the outcome of situations involving sentience, or at least the process. I'm not necessarily talking about quantitative predictions, but predictive enough for a teacher to guide a student.
Now if we use that theory to "program" a machine, the machine behaves as if it engages in the process of sentience. If our theory is successful, the machine does a good job of it. This success has nothing to do with the "meanings" of our machine's interaction, only that we agree on behavior.
Now that agreement is "subjective."
So you have an "objective" criterion?
If you do not, then your statement that
COMPONENTS OF SELF-AWARENESS OR SENTIENCE, WHICH ARE NOT THEMSELVES COMPUTATIONS. A MACHINE MODEL OF SENTIENCE CAN ONLY POSIT AWARENESS
is in no sense, absolute, that is, your subjective assessment of the agreement of behavior always fails the machine.
But you have no objective reasons for doing so, and you cannot (it turns out, unless you have a theory that is irrefutable and firmly established, which you do not).
It is our "mind" that causes the description but that is distinct from the meaning of the description. You seem to equate the two, but you have no basis for doing so. And it distinctly possible that your description, which has "meaning" we can all recognize, e.g.:
WITH SENTIENCE WE ARE FACED WITH THE STRANGE BUT INCONTROVERTIBLE FACT OF EXPERIENCE, OUR SUBJECTIVE SENSE AND DIRECT PERCEPTION OF BEING ALIVE, PSYCHOLOGICALLY, EXISTENTIALLY, AND IN TIME AND SPACE. THIS SUBJECTIVE COMPONENT IS NOT PART OF THE PACKAGE WITH "THINGS" (INANIMATE, NON-CONSCIOUS OBJECTS). THE EXPERIENTIAL IS "EXTRA," THE MORE-THAN SIMPLY OBJECTIVE.
does not, by its utterance, have anything at all to do with production of that description, that is, how the mind works.
Your theory of tPoS, if it were at all relevant, would provide the possibility of a programed machine that could "utter" equal descriptions, but in your judgment, not exhibit sentient behavior. Either your theory of pToS is no good, or you judgement subjective, but in so being, does not rule out the possibility of a physical theory of tPoS.
Actually, the theory is good, and that's why we have machines that exhibit all of your attributes of sentience,
AWARENESS, FOCUS AND ATTENTION
so we are left with trying to understand how you distinguish, objectively, between the behavior of the machine, and the behavior of a "sentient being."
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Jun 14, 2015 - 11:39am PT
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I've been railing about the evolutionary roots of intelligence for about as long as this thread has been going on.
The Zen guys have never been interested, while I find it revealing. We can see how the increase of brain size with H. Erectus led to his spread beyond just Africa.
The earliest stone tools are 3.3 million years old. It continued to almost the present day with Native Americans. The discovery of Bronze, an alloy of mostly copper with a little tin, made a much harder metal, and for those with the technology it was a big step.
This involves abstract thought. There was accurate language with which the technology could spread. When written language showed up, it was a huge breakthrough. With written language, knowledge could easily be spread both between humans and beyond generations. That's why we are typing instead of grunting and groaning.
There was obviously some abstract thought that went into the first stone tools, over 3 million years ago. Long before H. Sapiens showed up.
Intelligence, consciousness, awareness, intuitive thinking. It started millions of years ago. Sure, the progress was slow, but it did progress into better tools and no doubt better technique for using them.
Comparative biology in hand with evolution shows that at some point real intuitive consciousness appeared, even in our present definition.
It is kind of silly to ignore all of this.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 14, 2015 - 11:40am PT
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Interesting thing about this thread, when someone doesn't understand something, or when answers are not phrased on equation-speak, but a conversation is opened up, an investigation, people get so antsy for an "answer" or an end-game that the process stalls.
What I was saying earlier is quite simple and easy to know directly if you have the discipline to shut up and stop calculating for even half an hour.
Basically, we all need a brain to respond to stimulus. These responses will largely be based on evolutionary processes and our accrued disposition to the outside world per survival. These responses cold be called "objective functioning." When we try and wrestle down "mind" by way of what we are doing - believing that we now what something IS by virtue of what they do and only what they do - we need not go part investigating our objective functioning, and we are never required to shut up and stop calculating. We can approach mind as simply another
calculation or digital phenomenon, made tricky by dint of randomness, chaos and complexity, but we need not even attempt to go where materialism leave off - not for fear of woo, or God, or witch doctors, but because the whole story is tied to our evolutionary responses.
Now responses are always going to be tied to discrete people, places things and phenomenon in our field of awareness. A lion appears in the door of the cave and we go for weapons. We fell hungry and and eat. Ands so forth. However when we leave off tasking and doing (stop calculating), and keep our focus open - thwarting the discursive process - all that lives in our consciousness is inchoate, unborn, boundless and nameless. At this level, before differentiating occurs, exactly what is IN consciousness is ungraspable. Not till objective functioning "measures" (closes focus) do "things" take form for our discursive brains to start calculating once more.
From a survival or "doing" perspective it makes no sense to try and hang in that undifferentiated, unborn world. My sense of it - and I could be entirely wrong here - is that QM specialists exploring particle physics have no choice but to peer directly into this indefinite world, and to watch real things emerge into waves or stuff or (fill in the blank). It alway makes perfect sense that they would be most interested in the stuff or content that emerges, not the indefinite realm itself.
But if you want to get jiggy with sentience itself, and not just "doing," you have to leave off tasking - which is a very unnatural mode of consciousness - and dwell for a time with no-thing. AKA "no-mind."
And accept from the outset that it will make no sense till you have an experiential reference point. Also know that this is the exact opposite of vegging or spacing out, al la a zombie, which happens when alertness lags.
JL
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dave729
Trad climber
Western America
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Jun 14, 2015 - 11:43am PT
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I think the day we'll be truly screwed is when a self driving 18 wheeler
arrrives at a new housing development site, vomits dozens of robots that
build a complete luxury home in under 24hrs without a single human.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Jun 14, 2015 - 11:44am PT
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Ed,
So the three parent quarks of a neutron, if you just look at rest mass, don't come close to reaching the mass of the parent neutron. Please explain. Keep it simple for us morons.
edit: For that matter, enlighten us on what "rest mass" is.
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jstan
climber
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Jun 14, 2015 - 11:46am PT
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My post above posits awareness promotes our ability to survive. So we may have a reason why we develop awareness. This may then show one way humans may be ineluctantly different from the machine. Even were we to program computers so that they self destruct under certain conditions how would this property be reproduced in other machines? That seems a critical link.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnT1xgZgkpk
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jun 14, 2015 - 12:47pm PT
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So the three parent quarks of a neutron, if you just look at rest mass, don't come close to reaching the mass of the parent neutron. Please explain. Keep it simple for us morons.
a side from Largo's appropriation of quantum mechanics to argue from analogy, it doesn't quite seem relevant or appropriate to discuss this particular issue on this thread.
There is no "problem" with defining the mass of the neutron in terms of its constituents... the problem is getting it right, which we haven't yet. No one is declaring a crisis in physics because our current calculations aren't up to explaining what the mass is...
But to argue that it would be silly to further attempt to explain the mass of the neutron because we don't have a successful calculation to date would seem a stretch, yet that is what is being argued in the OP.
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jstan
climber
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Jun 14, 2015 - 12:54pm PT
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But to argue that it would be silly to further attempt to explain the mass of the neutron because we don't have a successful calculation to date would seem a stretch, yet that is what is being argued in the OP.
If we don't now have a calculation then we should not learn how to calculate.
To wit, "eat not of the tree of knowledge."
Somewhere, I have heard this before. Off hand I can't place where I heard it.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jun 14, 2015 - 01:04pm PT
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What I was saying earlier is quite simple and easy to know directly if you have the discipline to shut up and stop calculating for even half an hour.
but as far as you are concerned, you cannot "know" that I know, we agree on behavior... but that has nothing to do with what is "actually happening."
You don't want to concede that your "theory" is any worse than a physical theory. Yet you have not provided anything to show that it does better than a physical, materialistic theory.
A theory of consciousness needs to explain how a set of neurobiological processes can cause a system to be in a subjective state of sentience or awareness.
or it needs to discard the language used which has nothing at all do to with consciousness.
As you can see in all the confusion over what is a particle and what is a wave in quantum mechanics, we actually have to discard both notions... we modify their post-quantum mechanics meaning to attempt to apply our pre-quantum mechanics view, but they do not have the same meaning across the discovery of quantum mechanics divide.
If we posit "states of mind" then we have a task defining those states, their interactions and dynamics, i.e. their time-evolution. This will surely involve changing the meaning of many descriptive phrases which show up in Largo's arguments.
If Largo is saying that a physical theory of "mind" is impossible because it has not already been created then he really doesn't have anything.
If he is saying the reason is because it is impossible, he hasn't given any evidence that it is, in fact, impossible.
If he is saying that a physical theory cannot describe some common experiential phenomena, he is absolutely correct. However, the inability to describe these phenomena at this time does not have any relevance to whether or not they may be described, or if it is even relevant to describe them.
Aside from the fact that they are part of our common experience, he hasn't established that they are beyond description. The fact that I cannot describe them now is not proof that they cannot be described.
If he has such proof, he should bring it to the table.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Jun 14, 2015 - 01:12pm PT
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But to argue that it would be silly to further attempt to explain the mass of the neutron because we don't have a successful calculation to date would seem a stretch, yet that is what is being argued in the OP.
Yeah, but Largo, who in the original post on this thread railed against "scientism," started using examples from particle physics over on the God, Religion vs Science thread. He was very precise.
His notion was that some particles are dimensionless and have no mass, such as the photon, it jived with his Zen notion of emptiness. I tried to say it wasn't the same thing, by a long shot, but his carpool kept on posting. I was wondering where you went, not realizing that you were on this Mind thread all along.
It got downright nasty. My position that Largo knows some cats from Cal Tech and JPL, and readily scarfed their gravy, while having dissed science for years.
That really struck me. That Largo was pilfering from science after his dismissing it for so many years. I think it is dishonest, in a way. Certainly conflicting.
I just know rocks and their properties. I'm no physicist. I use logging tools designed by guys like you, but I don't need to know how a watch works to tell what time it is. The upside being that modern logs, which measure the properties of rocks penetrated in a deep borehole, owe their existence to particle physicists. I guess that you know a little about logs.
So I will stick with rocks and earth history (mainly Cambrian to the present).
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Jun 14, 2015 - 01:35pm PT
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Blue, I sense increasingly in America and for sure among my young students. that there is a new respect for animals. Videos of animals, their intelligence and their emotions, are some of the most popular subjects on the internet. There are whole animal cop shows now on TV showing people who neglect and abuse animals getting arrested and punished for that.
It is when we study the great apes and their abilities however, that it becomes especially obvious that consciousness, emotions and ethics, exist on a spectrum and that apes, particularly Bonobos, are amazingly like us. Once, we see this, it seems only natural to extend human ethics and consideration to them. Increasingly, this idea is applied to less intelligent animals as well. Hence the rise of things like vegetarianism and animal welfare societies.
Check out these videos for really interesting illiustrations.
http://www.ted.com/talks/susan_savage_rumbaugh_on_apes_that_write#t-36514
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBUHWoFnuB4
(This one is a four part series that loads automatically a few seconds after the last one is finished).
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Jun 14, 2015 - 02:18pm PT
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It is kind of silly to ignore all of this
Didn't you tell us once that the Grand Canyon took millions of yrs to develop?
Do you know therea a new theory for that?
And that the Contenental Shift is a slow moving phenom? But we just saw India move 10 ft last month.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Jun 14, 2015 - 03:09pm PT
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Jan, that's a great link.
That's the first I've seen about the influence of environment over biology. Well she called it culture vs biology.
The similarities between bone structures, along with that computer generated stride comparison are very convincing. But I've never seen any video of a monkey walking like that, do know of any? And the monkey have a decisively different pelvis and more bones in their vertebrae. Do you know of any info or vids that would show anything conclusive on the evolutional change in skeletal systems?
Thanks
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