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Sione, The nature of consciousness is not a question for science, it is one for philosophy. Consciousness is metaphysical, whereas science is a tool for explaining the physical world. Cognitive science has come up with certain approaches to studying consciousness using a scientific methodology and has come up with a number of easily repeatable experiments (most of these take the form of "optical illusions" or other such sensory phenomena which can be reliably repeated on any given test subject) I think since Kant most people, particularly of a scientific mindset, respect the separation between experiential consciousness and the brain activity underlying it. You seem to want to conflate the two. I think this is the source of your confusion. All that said: you did not disagree with the first question I asked, which was "Consciousness results from brain activity." If you believe this, then any questions relating to things like emotions, feelings, thoughts, and what exactly defines "consciousness" are irrelevant. If you believe that consciousness results from brain activity, then you should also believe that if we build a physical system similar enough to the brain, consciousness should result from it despite what knowledge or lack thereof the creator of the physical system may have about emotions, feelings, etc. These are secondary effects which are emergent from the behavior of the physical system itself. To build a copy of a brain inside a computer, we don't need to understand the great mysteries of the brain, the "whys" behind our genes constructing the brain in the way they do. All we need to understand is how the brain is structured, which merely requires we build a map of its structure. One of the most important things to gather from modern neuroscience is that the neocortex, the structure at the heart of consciousness, thought, reasoning, experience, etc, is immensely self-similar with only minor variation. These minor variations take the form of some specific tuning to help the neocortex organize itself into specific functional areas for different behaviors, however these areas are in no way fixed and the neocortex will automagically reorganize itself in the event of brain damage. This makes the task of understanding the operation of the neocortex considerably simpler, and there are comprehensive theories of the combined operation of the neocortex, thalamus, and hippocampus.

Yes, very much so. If you start from properly measured ingredients, you can follow a chemical formula and get the same results every time. Biology performs some absurdly complex chemical reactions, such as unfolding the DNA helix, unzipping it, reading off its nucleotides, and feeding that into a giant protein factory. Once the proteins emerge from this factory, they fold the same way every time. Cells are filled with little precisely engineered machines that have been carrying out their tasks with amazing accuracy for billions of years. Do you think there's some sort of chemical indeterminacy? What part of chemistry do you find non-deterministic. 2.) Do you think the "information" is within chemical structure or within electromagnetic fields? Both. Given your preoccupation with electromagnetic fields, I'm going to guess you believe there's some sort of quantum effect which affects electromagnetic fields in your brain, and that's a gateway to magical fantasy land where free will resides. Or if that's not it, can you perhaps describe what quantum majigger you think is going on in the brain? Like specifically? Penrose certainly believes there's a quantum effect going on. He hypothesizes quantum waveform collapse affects microtubules. Do you have something that specific to propose? I'm going to ignore your question and substitute my own: which ones do I think are conscious? That's the much more interesting question. Virus and bacteria, no, duh. I really don't know enough about squid to answer, but one of their relatives the cuttlefish I believe to be conscious. Birds I believe evolved a structure which is functionally similar to the neocortex and I do believe they possess a limited degree of consciousness. I think it varies a lot depending on the species. As for dogs and dolphins, they're both mammals and pretty much all mammals are conscious in my book.

Its purpose will be to power and operate a mechanical organ grinder monkey

Okay Sione, clearly we aren't getting anywhere. Let's start over. What do you make of this argument? Consciousness results from brain activity The brain is a physical system The behavior of physical systems can be modeled using the laws of physics Therefore, it should be possible to model a physical system which results in consciousness Can you perhaps point out which of these three statements you agree/disagree with before giving me your thoughts on the conclusion?

That would seem to be the "least common denominator" road to strong AI. Even if computer scientists and neurophysiologists are unable to crack the problem before then, I'm confident that computational biologists will end up picking up the slack. Provided processing power continues to increase along present trends, I think a molecular simulation of an entire human being will be possible in about 50 years. Science isn't about "proof", it's about constructing the most logical argument based on the available evidence. Present day attempts at building molecular models of cells are hindered by some particularly complex chemical reactions, such as the Gibbs free energy involved in protein folding. This has proven a tough nut to crack, although it is being researched simultaneously by the BlueGene/L supercomputer (which was the most powerful in the world) and the Folding@home project. Who's saying it won't? Certainly not me. That's a strawman. Again, the electromagnetic fields can be described using Maxwell's Equations, so what's the problem with incorporating them into the model? However, it's entirely possible that they aren't a necessary component of a successful simulation. If they are, they'll be included in the model. It's a bit of a diction error to call something like a brain simulation an "algorithm". However, nitpicking aside, of course. The brain is, for all intents and purposes, a deterministic physical system. Or to put it in Tegmark's phraseology, "the degrees of freedom of the human brain that relate to cognitive processes should be thought of as a classical rather than quantum system" I think what you're probably having trouble dealing with is the metaphysical separation between the physical systems responsible for consciousness and the first person conscious experience, which is clearly not "made of" anything physical. I used to have trouble with this as well, then I started reading various interpretations of Kant, and began buying into the metaphysical separation between consciousness and the physical world. So to go back to your original statement, I don't think the deterministic computer program itself "could have a sense of humor, be able to dream, believe in god or commit suicide?" It is instead the conscious entity resulting from the operation of such a program which could have these experiences. Yes, while we have some pretty comprehensive theories for how the neocortex works, and understand the connection structure between the cortex and the thalamus, exactly how the thalamus and neocortex work in conjunction (through the interconnecting loops between them) remains a mystery. Yes, I can. What is not understood is how the high level structures work in conjunction. However, they are all made out of the same things: neurons and glia, and those are well understood. We fully understand the building blocks and how they operate. There's nothing magical or quantum about them. They are merely physical systems. Again, to reiterate, the low level mechanics are well understood. It's the high level structure that remains a mystery. Simulating complex systems is a great way to study them. Modeling has been used as a successful tool in a multitude of domains, particularly physics.

Support for this comes from both neurophysiologists and physicists. For example, this paper from Max Tegmark in response to Roger Penrose's hypothesis that quantum mechanics is involved in brain processes: http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9907009 The great mysteries of the brain all involve its higher level structure and the interactions between various brain systems, not the behavior of individual neurons. That much is well understood. As Sisyphus said, computing power is the main limitation. The BlueBrain project is attempting to simulate the neocortex of a rat. The neocortex is suspected to be crucial to intelligence and consciousness. However, even with one of the world's most powerful supercomputers they are only able to simulate one neocortical "column" of a rat. A rat's neocortical column has 10,000 neurons compared to human neocortical columns, which have 60,000 neurons. A human has nearly a million neocortical columns. To simulate just the neocortex of a human, we'd need a computer that's approximately six million times faster than BlueBrain.

No, however it's clear you don't understand the forces you are describing can be explained as a combination of chemistry and classical field theory, both of which were mentioned in the post you're responding to. Actually, on the scales of something like the brain, it is. It's defined extremely well. That's why we can build things like MRI machines. You might try reading about Maxwell's Equations Yes, on the scale of structures like the brain it's well understood. The brain consists of large, complex structures whose behavior can be explained by classical mechanics. Well, the point would be to perform the simulation at a higher level than taking into account individual atomic bonds. For example, if you precompute a table for how different proteins fold, you don't need to model their Gibbs Free Energy. There are many potential optimizations which can speed up a smart model, as opposed to one which is blindly trying to simulate cells atom-by-atom.

Artificial neural networks have effectively plateaued. The only focus of present research is narrow AI applications. Anything which runs on a Turing machine is inherently deterministic. The emergence is of a secondary metaphysical construct, in this case your perceived conscious experience. If you believe emergent materialism, the content of this experience is entirely determined by the physical goings on of the brain. If there are quantum effects at play somewhere their probabilities would need to be modeled and simulated. I'm sure it's not too terribly difficult for quantum physicists to build models of quantum effects which have similar statistical properties to the real thing. In the case of the brain, the underlying mechanics are classical (chemistry, classical field theory, etc) and are extremely well defined and understood New MRI and other neural imaging technologies are making it increasingly easier to build sophisticated maps of the structure of the brain. These can in turn be applied towards creating a full computer simulation. Alternatively we could model the entire human development process inside a computer, starting with a fertilized egg and letting it mature into a complete artificial human.

I don't think emotions are thoughts by my definition. Emotions are more of a background mental state which influences the overall function of our thinking. Again I'll make the argument that the emotions we experience in the content of our consciousness (i.e. noumenologically) are directly related to the physical state of our brain and various levels of neurotransmitters. I'm a compatibilist of sorts and agree with the general argument put forth in his book Freedom Evolves: we have the "freedoms that matter" which stems from our ability to predict and pick from a number of potential futures. Dennett argues the underlying mechanics of this process are still deterministic, i.e. given the same mental states and being put in the same situation we will make the same choice every time. If you have a black and white view of the matter and think that any functional simulation of the brain implies determinism and that's incompatible with "free will", then I would say we don't have free will by your definition. Thoughts and emotions come entirely at the behest of electrical and chemical reactions in the brain, which can be understood using classical mechanics. As an emergent materialist, I would argue that qualia, emotion, etc. would emerge from a complete enough functional simulation of the human brain. There is no evidence of quantum behavior in the brain. Moreover, there has been substantial research into the behavior of the brain and models constructed which rely on classical mechanics. Neurophysiologists have not discovered any brain behaviors which cannot be explained using classical mechanics.

This discussion is silly. Emotions are noumena, and applying phraseology like "deterministic" to noumena is silly. The question is whether the content of consciousness (i.e. noumena), including things like emotions, the color red, the taste of a lollipop, the smell of a mountain flower, etc. is fundamentally rooted in a deterministic system in which they're physically manifest (i.e. your brain) In as much as emotions go, I think there is ample evidence linking certain emotional states to associated neurotransmitters. Consider someone with artificially elevated levels of serotonin, such as what occurs when someone takes the drug MDMA or takes a SSRI. They feel happier. We can deterministically alter someone's emotional state by feeding them drugs. There's nothing non-deterministic or magical about emotion. It's just chemicals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-state_solution I'm seeing an increasing number of articles referencing this idea. It's a proposed way of solving the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Instead of having separate states of Israel and Palestine, they'd be unified into a single "Isralestine" where everyone would receive equal rights regardless of ethnic background. What do you think. Could it work? I think it's certainly an alternative to consider as the other alternatives seem to have all failed miserably and repeatedly.

My concern over the use of white phosphorus in areas populated by civilians remains

There's Cyc. Here's a visual representation of its ontology: http://www.cyc.com/cyc/technology/whatiscyc_dir/whatdoescycknow

It appears Obama's hit a major snag closing Gitmo: case files for many of the detainees are nonexistent or in disarray: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/24/AR2009012401702.html

I've heard good things about Altered Beast but I haven't used it myself.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/24/pakistan-barack-obama-air-strike Obama has ordered an airstrike against what was once an "ally in the war on terror" The goal of the strike was to target Al Qaeda leaders, potentially including Osama bin Laden All I can say is... about time?

Is this all because you want me to say "he's closing Gitmo" instead of "he closed Gitmo"?

http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/maccain_obama_allies/2009/01/23/174580.html I kinda feel sorry for McCain... he was probably thinking "I bet I end up running against Hillary. I could cream that bitch!" but instead it's "Oh f*** Obama!" But yeah, seriously... surprising and pretty cool.

http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/obama_abortion_policy/2009/01/23/174721.html Obama has overturned a Bush administration ban on giving funds to international organizations which, under an umbrella of other functions, perform abortions. Oh yeah, and he closed Gitmo. I give a thumbs up to both of these actions. So feel free to post here with updates on various Bush administration executive orders and policies Obama has overturned.

Wow, does anyone really want to see my report card for Bush? I think it's fairly predictable. War in Afghanistan: F- The Taliban have recouped. Osama bin Laden was allowed to escape. The country's government is completely corrupt and run at the behest of a shadow government controlled by the opium cartels. The entire country is essentially one big opium farm. What should've been the focus of our post-9/11 anti-terror activities was allowed to linger by the wayside, and is now an abominable mess. Afghanistan remains a huge black eye for Bush foreign policy and the "war on terror" in general War in Iraq: D- The situation is Iraq is certainly better than the situation in Afghanistan and better than it was, so I'm not giving Iraq an F. However, the haphazard way the case for the war was made, the human casualties involved (both Iraqi and American), and the way the administration willfully disregarded the advice of the CIA in terms of disseminating intelligence the CIA themselves was unsure of do anything but earn this administration high marks for the war there. Counterterrorism: D Ascertaining whether an administration's counterterrorism policy is actually working is difficult to do, because you won't know it isn't working until it fails. That said, two of the most visible domestic counterterrorism measures: the TSA and the Department of Homeland Security, both seem like jokes and wasteful failures. Air travel in the United States, especially for foreigners, has become increasingly a more incovenient and hostile experience as paranoia surrounding potential terrorist attacks against airplanes has seemingly only increased. I don't think the measures that have been put in place are remotely pragmatic, and many give merely an illusion of security. I have not seen any evidence of a credible terrorist threat which was stopped by this administration. Certainly there have been alleged "threats", but were the perpetrators actually serious and capable of pulling it off? Economy: F I think this president overall has been quite toxic to our economy. I'm not trying to pin everything on him. Clearly Greenspan is culpable in the financial crisis. However, I believe Bush has fostered economic policies which are counter to the country's best interests. Under Bush we've seen massive increases in government spending coupled with a decrease in taxation. While it's arguable the original intent of the tax cuts was to stimulate the economy during the post-9/11 recession, the increases in spending were not. We've seen the budget of the DoD nearly double despite the DoD's inability to account for trillions of dollars of spending. This increased spending with decreased revenue has resulted in rampant foreign borrowing by our government. This has lead to a massive devaluation of the dollar. Where 1 Euro would fetch US$0.75 when Bush took office, now US$1 fetches only 0.78 euros. The prices of consumer goods have skyrocketed. Commodities overseas which used to be traded in dollars, like oil, have moved to other currencies following the dollar's massive devaluation. With the financial crisis looming, Bush urged a federal bailout of our financial institutions. This bailout is increasingly seen as little more than a handout that executives have used to line their pockets with. World Standing: F Following September 11th, 2001 the entire world felt sorry for America. Considerable support was thrown behind us from countries around the world. It's hard to imagine any other time in history when America was hated less. Countries around the world felt like that could just as easily happen to them, and there was an international outpouring of support. Bush exploited those sympathies to get all nations on board for his "war on terror". Slowly, sympathy for America dried up and evaporated. Relationships grew increasingly vitriolic and Bush and vicariously America soon became hated around the world. America's pre-emptive invasion of Iraq was not received well by the international community, who would go on to brand it "illegal". As has been said earlier, I don't think there's been any other time in recent history when America has been looked down upon in this manner. Civil Liberties: F- At one point in time the Fourth Amendment and FISA checked the executive branch from wiretapping Americans without a warrant. Bush decided to bypass these checks and personally authorized a program which spied on innocent Americans without a warrant. A federal judge has ruled Bush culpable for this crime. Furthermore, the NSA engaged in unwarranted and widespread electronic spying on Americans. Recently a whistleblower has emerged claiming the NSA's warrantless surveillance program targeted U.S. journalists, and vacuumed in all domestic communications of Americans, including, faxes, phone calls and network traffic. I think this is a completely unprecedented abuse of executive power and one which flies in the face of our civil liberties. -- I could keep going, but I think I've gotten my point across. I wasn't a fan of Bush.

Tesla's real goal was to fill the Schumann Cavity with resonant ELF signals by building a massive radio transmitter which would be powered by conventional electric generators. Unfortunately, the Schumann cavity is non-uniform so it would "leak" (Tesla had no idea of realizing this at the time) and require a transmitter far more powerful than his Wardenclyffe Tower to even be remotely feasable. Tesla's ideas for wireless power transmission were simply impractical, and that is why they haven't been developed further. It wasn't like Tesla had some magical technology which has been forever lost.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28788175/ Shortly after halting trials for those imprisoned at Gitmo, Obama has officially announced he is shutting it down. Words cannot express how happy I am about this. Gitmo was a big black eye on America's international image and one of those things that made me ashamed to have associated with the government of my country. I feel better about America today.

Here's a PLT Scheme implementation of Mandelbrot. Hopefully this helps get you started: http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/gp4/benchmark.php?test=mandelbrot〈=mzscheme&id=2

There's a very easy way to childproof your guns. It's called putting them in a locked gun safe. If a child dies because their parents failed to safely store their guns I'm sorry, but that's natural selection at work.

And there is ternary logic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ternary_logic Three values for logic expressions can have a number of uses. One of the most obvious is comparing two integers. In a three-valued logic system this can be done with a single operator, which can tell you if the two numbers are equal, if the first is greater than the other, or if the first is less than the other. Programmers often rely on the concept of a "null" value as well, so in a three valued system it's easy to represent true, false, and null. However, three valued logic is considerably more complex. Couple that with the fact that processors, RAM, hard drives, CDs/DVDs, etc. are already based around binary and there's very little reason to change.