geordief

I hope I didn't overdo it.(it is a very ,very famous quote though) Might be more startling if an AI machine decided that it didn't exist(could happen too)

Well baby steps are always best ,especially in the icy conditions we have had the past week.

Don't we already know that?Who doubts the existence of an objective reality**? Isn't it the subjective reality that is or is not in question? Or did you mean" there is thinking, therefore something exists...in our subjective consciousness?" **that our senses approximate to and can mislead about.

Definitions are always important.As per the title of the OP this is hardly a purely scientific discussion. I can see why religious or Marxist-leninist discussions would leave a sour taste but I wouldn't include the question of "what is reality?" to be in the gutter with them,even if it has no obvious usefulness and may have been done to death over the years.

That is what I always thought too**Maybe we need a non layman philosopher to sort the wheat from the chaff **although,as I said I was aware for some time that some were saying that this was not the "true" meaning....

That is not very reassuring or pleasant if the pinacle of our intellectual understanding is "there are thoughts" I just had a quick look at the subject where the meaning of "cogito ergo sum" was discussed(did Descartes write in Latin,I wonder ?) and the gist was that he may have been giving a riposte to the seemingly then prevalent idea that ,because we can know nothing for sure then it follows that we can not even say that we even exist . Apparently according to what I just read ,he was really saying "I doubt and therefore I exist" The suspension of credulity saves the individual from being washed away by delusion (A bit like my first known philosopher ,Socrates said (of other puffed up "philosophers " of his day) "I know nothing, but I know that I know nothing" The latter is a creation of the former? As a painter can create a landscape ,so can he or she create a self portrait. AI is a creature of its creator .It can turn against its creator in the same way the son may kill the father .

"Should"as in that is what Descartes was actually saying ,or "should" as in that he misspoke and said the wrong thing? I have heard it said quite often that the saying has been misinterpreted but am not clear on what this means. Did he say/write this the one time only ?Was it "Je pense donc je suis" or was it some variant of that?

What, no candy wrapper patrols on the Big Rock Candy Mountain?

Or going through the rubbish looking for evidence pointing to the identity of the culprit.That can be satisfying. This happened to a close friend who was very annoyed and wrote them a letter to put her case but she ended up paying the fine (over a hundred euros) It wasn't fly tipping or casual littering but putting the wrong kind of rubbish in the wrong place.

Is that a software/hardware distinction or do those definitions bleed into each other?

You mean Russia has enough of these drones to overwhelm Ukraine's defenses and prolong the blackouts through the whole winter? Do you think the Patriots would have a role in combating the drones that are causing the damage at the moment?

I not sure how effective the Patriot anti-missile system would be against Russia's current campaign against the civilian infrastructure. I get the feeling it may be more intended to counter what may be in the pipeline regarding larger more accurate missiles that Iran may provide in the near future. I think the cost of the Patriots against the current drones may be extremely lopsided and I hope that Ukraine may weather the present storm without needing to use Patriot systems.

Imagine (not to hard I know) that in the near medium or farther out future that our civilisation managed to bring itself to the point where further "civilized" life was no longer possible on this planet Also the option of continuing on planets in tha Solar system was judged unrealistic. Under those circumstances might our descendants who could themselves at this existential dead end find a way to broadcast their dna across the galaxy with the aim of colonizing another planetary system even if all the members of their current civilisation were doomed to perish? What methods might be employed to "seed" another planetary system? Might a virus or viruses be modified that could carry the dna of the expiring civilisation? Could some record of that civilisation also be embodied into the code? I understand that a lot of the human (and other?)dna is surplus to requirements.Could that be used as "storage space"?

Glad you enjoyed it.

Some kind of a gremlin in the works

Two for the price of one

I have often wondered exactly the same thing Has anyone else wondered the same thing? Is it just "suck it and see" or is there anything that can be said either way?)or is there even a middle way?) If the answer is that the entity that was built by "filling in the gaps" in the existing conscious entity was exactly the same ,then that would presumably shape our understanding of what it is to be conscious on the first place. Would consciousness show its face to be banal rather than the be all and end all it feels like to me? Would it preclude "degrees of consciousness "?

Thanks to @TheVat there is this site that addresses the importance of seagrasses https://www.seagrasswatch.org/seagrassimportance/ (This came up in an earlier thread )

SSS Warning :Sarcasm Sargasso Sea

We sometimes hear it said that such and such a person ,or a team has "created life" OK ,let us imagine that this is actually achieved (however we might define life)....If this was to occur, it would be ,initially something very basic compared to what we would understand as a living entity. Suppose we were to ask "Can you create something comparable to life forms that actually exist?" would there be any paths to achieving this? Any paths that did not involve millions of years of evolution and natural selection? Could the idea even be entertained if there were not a physical environment for the new creation to develop in? I would not accept as an answer a carbon copy (or an edited copy) of an existing life form.The new creation would have to be an entirely new entity that should be either immediately (seems incredible) ,or after a period of evolution develop into something that would bear comparison (or outshine)an existing living creature (not necessarily a higher order one but why not seeing how hard it might be to bear comparison to a lower order one?) In the Bible ,God was supposed to have created humans in very short order-the 7th day wasn't it What chances are ther for any natural process or intelligent designer (to coin a phrase) to achieve anything along those lines? I suggest ** that we are equally as unlikely as any imagined God to pull off this feat and that the essential ingredient in developing life forms is lots and lots of time.(as the physical world develops, then so can life,if circumstances permit) **I doubt this is controversial

That's right .I keep forgetting that. Was history rewritten by the sore loosers? I find it dismal if we cannot keep ahead of the censors(I suppose if they back up their lies with brutal suppression it is understandable) I liked that Good Soldier Svejk book. We had a Czech woman to help us once in the BnB and she was chuffed that I had read it.

Is that the title? Doesn't come up in a search. Who is the author? (The title reminds me of a film I saw in the 80s."My Life as a Dog" but there is no connection.) I also picked up an old(17th century) French book,"Fables" by La Fontaine. Hard work .It is his translation of Aesop's tales.He was a gas character and a slave who become a free man(a bit like Jeeves with Bertie Wooster)

Is AI in this context not always going to be playing catch up? Who would have imagined a blank page would be a symbol for (whatever it is understood to mean)? Will AI be writing affecting poetry next and putting our creative thinkers and communicators out of business? Or will it be doing a valiant effort at copycating what is already out of date?

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-04201-6 "Did physicists create a wormhole in a quantum computer?" I was wondering what anyone here makes of this latest news as published today in Nature? Did they just simulate the transfer of information or did it really happen (both?) How might this affect the search for a theory of quantum gravity?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-63813122 This article has a good few examples for how the Chinese people are getting around the censor in the aftermath of the recent death of their former President. I wonder who will come out on top? The censors or the censorees? It has been ,I think accepted wisdom that the censor fights a losing battle ,rather like poor King Canute but the Chinese CP seems to be game for the fight Can it win ?