Bender

It doesn't matter for the argument, but I feel I have to point out that this statement is flawed because U and Pu decay to bèta emitters. I can see how this can worry you, and you have my sympathy. However, is plausible denial even a concept in NK? I doubt they use it in court. Is a leader who is himself never bothered about plausible denial going to risk everything on another leader to use the concept (especially if that leader is Trump)?

I know the competition is tough, but this may be your poorest argument so far. I can make my toaster run on eg solar power. If I make it run on organic oil, does it become conscious? So Biology is not science? Adding "these are facts", is a clear warning for nonsense. I read a piece by Harun Yahya that was full of such statements. Your definitions of consciousness are getting weirder and weirder. Now our consciousness is an inanimate object that's not even part of our body? I thought it would have been clear by now that I'm monist/materialist/reductionist however you want to call it. No need to put words in my mouth. I refuse to accept that someone as brilliant as you cannot deduce what I actually meant from the context.

Food

Yes. Besides, they'd target the US first anyway ;-)

Fair enough, but that was only a minor afterthought and leaves my main objections to the idea untouched.

It has nothing to do with Shinto. I'm referring to sufficiently advanced computers. Since there is no reason to assume consciousness is nothing but an emergent property of biochemical interactions, I also see no reason to assume electronic interactions cannot have the same emergent property. As I already stated in this thread, I think that bacteria, which I consider to be alive, are no more conscious than my toaster. While there are many vague definitions of consciousness, I also think it is silly to say bacteria have it, since it would degrade the concept to meaninglessness.

But what is enough money for North Korea, given the risk of total annihilation if word gets out? North Korea has a GDP of $30 billion and $20 billion in foreign debts. To take such a risk, the gain should certainly be significant, and they would have to be very stupid to go bellow $1 billion (above production costs, but it is probably safe to ignore those, as they don't set the price). You still need to get it out unnoticed and untraceable. I don't know how thick of a lead shell you have to put around it to avoid Geiger tellers going off. (About the question "why would they": would you thrust them, not necessarily their intentions, but also their professionalism?) I think it is a safe bet that ISIL is the most financially potent terrorist organisation. In 2014, they were estimated to have 2 billion in assets. So perhaps if the most potent terrorist organisation ever burnt 50% of its assets, they might have gotten somewhat close to convincing the most likely seller. On top of that, I highly doubt ISIL was ever organised enough to actually get all those assets in a single location for a single transaction. Now however, ISIL undoubtedly lost much of its financial advantage together with its territory, which again leaves us with fictional organisations, such as Hydra. International relations with North Korea also seem to have improved greatly since then. So again: I'm not worried.

Downvotes are for ad hominem attacks, derogatory remarks, poor sportsmanship, particularly bad science and argumentation, arrogance... It's generally not done to give bad rep simply for disagreeing with someone. Not even if they made a mistake (except if they are persistent and or arrogant about their mistakes). About your thoughts: why do you equate consciousness to life? Why can a nonliving object not be conscious? Do you also think all life is conscious?

I have never encounteted that behaviour in pressure regulators. I can see how there could be a (small) surge when the pressure is switched on, but a surge suddenly happening is odd. Are these electronic regulators? Are there large fluctuations in the flow?

We are discussing consciousness, not life. Equating consciousness to life is redundant, because we already have a word for that: "life". You could say the same about God. In absence of evidence, I see no reason to assume consciousness is in any way special; nor unachievable by nonliving computers. Besides, the ancient Greek philosophers had all kind of funny ideas, and Einstein rejected the big bang and quantum uncertainty because of his philosophical ideas. Are you also going to refer to Freud in a discussion about the Higgs boson? The God idea: yes (although I'm not convinced of the unconscious part). A toaster also comes from the human mind. That doesn't mean a toaster is consciousness. (I'm really starting to like toasters, the towel of philosophical discussions) I can do analogies too. Think of the temperature sensor and timer as magnets and the electrical current in the wiring as the force. Or another analogy : think of consciousness as the operating system organising low-level processes and emotions as user profile settings

I did. Real terrorist organisations are usually poorly organised and uncoordinated, and have never even remotely shown the capability of stealing nuclear weapons. Getting some people trained as pilot isn't particularly difficult, and even capturing a civilian plane with no guards at all on board is quite a bit easier than invading a military facility. And of course a nuke is required : That's the topic of this thread. Also: please drop the attitude and agressive language. Enriching uranium to 80+% is not easy. I can't access your link.

For a bomb, you need about 50 kg of Uranium 235 with a purity above 80%. Nuclear power plants need uranium with about 3-5% u235, which is completely useless for a bomb. So to get the uranium required, you need to make it yourself or Rob a military facility.

Could be. I don't have much experience estimating angles in the sky.

Because Hydra only exists in movies and comic books. Excluding the billions you need for the required infrastructure.

Sky Map is a nice app to identify stars or planets. Mercury would be more or less at that position, but not that bright. Did you also see it at the moment you took the pictures? If it was the moon, that should have been quite obvious with the naked eye. Perhaps it was a satellite (was it moving), or a weather balloon?

Sounds more like a criminal organisation than a terrorist organisation. Also, since Hydra doesn't actually exist, I wouldn't worry too much. It's not like atomic bombs can be bought on ali-express, or that terrorist are well known for their exquisite organisational skills.

You are welcome. Good luck. Care to share what the experiment is?

Is the power supply 24V or lower? If not: don't use it until you know what you are doing. If yes: is it a variable or constant power supply? Hopefully it is variable, and in that case you should always start at 0 and gradually increase voltage or current when you turn it on and gradually decrease it to zero when turning it off. Abruptly cutting the current on a coil can cause extremely large voltages, sparks and stuff breaking. Lastly: don't put the magnet near creditcards or other magnetic cards or near electronic devices.

I completely agree, which is why I think equating chemical reactions to consciousness (and thus to God, as Gees suggested; and to get back on topic), is pretty silly. I also agree with Koti's earlier remark that there is nothing particularly special or interesting about consciousness.

Don't overestimate the reaction of bacteria. The interaction is usually limited to absorbing chemicals which accidentally hit their membrane or doing nothing until eg a higher temperature activates some chemical reactions. On top of the reactions described by iNow, there are also some "functional" reactions: a led goes on when it is pluggen in; the heating starts when the environment presses the on button; the better toasters will even detect in which slots there is bread or (indirectly) adjust to ambient temperature and humidity.

Yeah, I never said toasters are alive. I never even mentioned they are conscious, only that they are as conscious as bacteria.

Correction: some bacteria can move. Are those bacteria which cannot move less alive/conscious/aware/whatever than those who can? Besides, I could build you a toaster that moves towards bread with similar intelligence as bacteria. Seriously, I'm an engineer, if you give me 50.000$ I will make you one for real. I can probably do it cheaper, but then I need you to give me an advance payment for a more detailed quotation.

There is a "the" philosophical definition? I would say there are dozens of, sometimes contradicting, definitions with varying degrees of vagueness. I doubt there is even a clear universally agreed on medical definition. About as complex as a toaster (and I'm not even talking about a fancy toaster with a clock and wifi, which would be a lot more "conscious" than a blade of grass). Perhaps you call that conscious (didn't you previously define consciousness as awareness, to later define it as the ability to replicate cells?). But hey, now fire is conscious, crystals are conscious, stars are conscious, ecosystems are conscious... Life definitely does not ignore entropy but increases overall entropy. Wouldn't single cell organisms also be considered alive while not currently in the process of division?

Why is that that relevant? Many bacteria do not seek out anything.

Let's start with the function of the lens in our eye. You can only focus (see sharp) on one distance at a time. If you focus on an object close to you, you see everything at a distance blurry (you will also see objects blurry which are even closer ). When focussing at the distance, you relax the lens of your eye, changing its shape. You will see objects at a that distance sharp and closer objects blurry.