JohnF

When I had a motorcycle accident I was rendered unconscious for a short while; probably by the impact of the car hitting me. I didn't see the car coming and didn't know I'd been involved in a collision until I regained consciousness about 3 minutes later. What I do remember is BLANK! I wondered why there was blank, I couldn't understand it. I thought about it and decided it was definitely blank and not darkness or the absence of light. It was like only I existed, not my body or my brain. I had no feeling of self awareness until I was conscious again; it seemed I was stuck in the witness state.

You're missing the point. If we develop robots that can reproduce themselves then it doesn't matter what we gave them to begin with; that's just their starting point. If they can reproduce, then during the reproduction an error could occur that becomes part of the mind of such a robot. I'm not saying that such an error is bound to occur, just that it could. Further to that though you say the creationist robots would not exist. Why wouldn't they exist, after all they were created by us? And since they were created by us and evolved on their own how could you not have both points of view?

You're assuming that random evolution will not occur; a change due to an error perhaps. It would only require one change that interfered with the logic which then gave that particular robot variation the competitive advantage.

How weird will that be. Can you imagine an Evolution -v- Creationist forum in the future with members that are the evolutionary result of robots we designed and created. How will they answer those questions; especially if we, the designers, have been extinct for millennia.

What if there was a smaller pyramid near by and they recycled that first before adding more stones? As for evidence of a smaller pyramid; well perhaps they were very good at recycling and landscaping.

It's interesting that you make the distinction of complex life for an intelligent design but by implication seem to disregard it for simpler life. If intelligent design were responsible for life then surely it would have to be responsible for any life; from there on you just need evolution. Life from nothing would seem to have to rely on random interactions of chemicals. There may have been enough time since the planet was formed for those interactions to occur and for life to come in to existence. It is also possible that life was seeded on this planet from a comet and life had the age of the universe for those random interactions to occur and to come in to existence. Even if intelligent design is responsible for life why is it assumed that evolution isn't part of that intelligent design; after all, it is quite a clever method and it allows for a diversity of life beyond design. If I were to design life I'd do it the easy way and then let it take it's own course. It would be much more fun to see what evolution came up with than just seeing nothing more than what I had made. Perhaps even an intelligent designer enjoys a surprise every now and then.

So what you're suggesting is that by planting a tree in deep water, the water will help support it and possibly provide a means of getting nutrients from further up the tree than the roots. What will still be important is the amount of tree above the water level; this is the part that you would colonise. The part above the water will still have to contend with wind and would probably not be much larger than current large trees. The tree below water level will also have to handle storm waves and undersea currents. It would also have to be engineered in such a way that it could resist under water invasion and colonisation which could weaken or kill it. Given the amount of water on the planet it seems that if such a tree was viable, one would have evolved; or at least something similar.

I think assuming that people only own or carry guns because of some macho inclination is probably false. I would expect that most people that own guns don't normally carry them around with them. If I'm wrong here then I assume someone will correct me. Assuming I am right and most gun owners don't carry them around then gun ownership is for reasons other than feeling more powerful. It is more likely that people choose to own guns because it gives them an increased feeling of security. If people perceive themselves to be threatened then they will want to do something to reduce that perceived threat. Having a gun in the house is one of the options they have open to them. It is more cost effective and convenient to buy a gun than to fit surveillance equipment and have bars at the windows. A gun will also give them a last line of defence protection once all other defences have been breached. Having said that though, if it is true that most gun owners don't actually carry their guns on a day to day basis then if there were severe restrictions placed on gun ownership that made it illegal to carry guns, rather than transport them, such a change is going to have no impact on the majority of citizens. The major impact is going to be felt by people who do carry guns regularly. In this group there is more likely to be a greater number of people that carry guns because it gives them a feeling of power; like criminals and younger gang members.

The reason they did this is because they learned how to move larger blocks. They started by cutting out the largest blocks they thought they could move. This taught them enough to realise they could move even larger blocks. Cutting out 3 very large blocks is more efficient than cutting out 6 blocks of half the length. As long as the effort required cut out and move 3 very large blocks is less than the effort to cut out and move 6 smaller ones then it makes sense. The cutting out process is much more time consuming than the moving process. As for placing them without toppling the other blocks. That will have been done by sliding them off whatever platform was constructed during the lifting process. Whether they used levers or wedges to lift them there would still be a need for a support structure to grow beneath them. To aid in sliding them they may have used sand or grit to act as a lubricant. They would have probably slid one end of the stone on to the others first before sliding the other end on rather than trying to slide the whole 800 ton stone on in one movement. It is very unlikely they will have used a 1,200 ton capacity Gottwald AK912 Strut Jib Crane though as they would have to first find oil and learn how to refine it. There is no archaeological evidence of crane manufacturing facilities for that time period either. And who would provide the third party liability insurance? As for one being taken back in time that would go against the Temporal Prime Directive and Starfleet would have taken action to correct the anomaly.

In that case they would need to lift between 450 and 500 tons with levers. This makes it less likely but I certainly wouldn't dismiss it. I think for these 800 ton stones they may well have used the wedge method to lift them. insane_alien: The pivot point is not just the point on which the length of timber rests, it is also the point on the timber where it is in contact with the rock. The timber may not have the tension and torsion strength to provide a high enough yield stength to lift such a weight.

If both the criminal and the house holder have a gun there is a chance that either of them could be shot. I would expect that the house holder is more likely to be shot as the criminal is more likely to be prepared. If just the house holder has a gun then there is little chance that the house holder will be shot but some chance that the criminal will be shot since the house holder is going to feel anger and is not likely to be calm. If just the criminal has a gun then there is less chance of the criminal being shot but some chance of the house holder being shot. If neither of them has a gun then there is no chance of either of them being shot. It is clear that the best situation to be in is to have neither of them with a gun, but this is not likely to be possible without removing everyone's right to own a gun. If you remove such a right you leave the guns in the hands of the criminals whilst law abiding citizens remain defenceless. Why does the criminal carry a gun? I suggest it is because carrying a gun is allowed and it also gives the criminal an advantage. If you remove the right to carry the gun, but not the right to own one, then this places the criminal in a disadvantaged position. The criminal would still like to have a gun but now runs an additional risk of being arrested for carrying one. The house holder runs no such risk, the house holder owns a gun which is at home. The right to own a gun is not as great a problem as the right to carry one. Remove the right to carry one and the criminal is less likely to carry a gun and therefore disadvantaged. This is true only for situations where the criminal enters the house holders home though. For situations outside of the home where the house holder, who is assumed to be law abiding, has no gun but the criminal, who is less likely to obey this law, is in possession of a gun the advantage falls to the criminal. However, the criminal use of a gun in a mugging or robbery is primarily to subdue the victim and ensure compliance with the criminals demands. Use of the gun, although possible, is less likely as it will draw attention the crime in progress. This may seem to place the law abiding citizen at a disadvantage, but then how likely is it that in the case of a mugging the criminal will allow the victim to make use of a concealed weapon. You may argue that the criminal would use the gun anyway. If it is the intent of the criminal to kill the victim then this will happen regardless of whether the victim has a gun or not. The criminal is prepared, the victim is not.

This is not a fair comparison. Firstly we should only discuss the stones that were moved; the 300 ton ones. It may be that the 800 ton stone proved to be to heavy to move. They would only have to lift a little over half the weight of the stone; say 180 tons, not 300 tons. insane_alien suggests wooden levers for this so this reduces the amount of force that needs to be applied; although the lever pivot points do have to support the 180 tons between them and they need to get a sufficient number of levers at one end of the stone.

I'm glad you say it's 12 feet. Lifting them about that distance isn't a major problem; I had been thinking it was about 30 feet for some reason and that height was giving me problems I couldn't overcome. I find it hard to believe that nobody has worked out how to lift them though. What is your interest in this, are you just curious or is this a serious subject of study for you?

That puts a completely different perspective on it. In the UK we only hear of people defending themselves when they go too far. We are only allowed to use reasonable force to defend ourselves. Anything more than that can result in prosecution. If I find someone in my house I can't shoot or stab them unless they have a gun or knife and are threatening my life. Even if I hit someone too hard I could end up being prosecuted. Many people here want a similar option like you have in the US where we have a protected right to defend ourselves and our property by whatever means are necessary. It seems in the UK we are not just expected to be victims but martyrs too And I suppose if we hadn't been so greedy and bloody minded about it you would have been given independence instead of having to fight for it. What would the US constitution look like then I wonder.

You may be right on that. I remember when the laws were proposed after Dunblane, it really seemed like a knee jerk reaction and very unfair to people. The problem is that guns are the easy scapegoat and so politicians just take the easy route. It amazes me how naive they are to think that a criminal will not illegally obtain a gun just because a new law has been passed. I've never owned, or wanted to own, a gun. Maybe that's a cultural difference. In the UK we grow up without experience of guns whereas in the US you grow up seeing guns quite regularly; at least that's how it looks from here. I still find it quite uncomfortable to see armed police officers at the airports and when I'm in a country where the police are normally armed. Do you take guns for granted in the US? If you do how does this effect your perception of them; even if you've never owned one? To me, hand guns are designed for the purpose of killing; mostly people. Rifles on the other hand can be for the purpose of hunting; mostly animals.

Is it the constitutional right to bear arms that holds back the gun control issue? Could there not be an argument for only allowing people to bear arms that were available up to 1791? This means the right is not removed but the arms that would be available would be of far less interest to most people. Or does the constitution allow for bearing arms of any type that may be invented in the future? Could US citizens one day have the right to own a hand gun capable of mass destruction if such a wepon was invented? We have an ancient law in the UK, that has never been repealed, that requires people to practice their archery on Sunday after church. As you can imagine it is not adhered to in the most part. It is there to ensure a suitably capable force is available to repel an invasion; much the same reason for the US right to bear arms. When I took up archery though it wasn't to defend against the French, it was just for the fun of it.

I would say that as long as change is possible then evolution will occur. Evolution requires the ability to change, and competition; not necessarily direct competition though. If a life form came in to existence on a planet and that life form had a mechanism that allowed change then change would occur. Once change has occurred you would have a variant of the original life form. If one of these two life forms had a competitive advantage over the other it would do better. In this way you will always get evolution. Evolution even occurs in the market place with manufactured goods and services.

If anyone figures out how the universe started then they will have completed the game which will leave nothing else to do except pack up and go home. I hope the answer is never found.

So that's saying that perhaps we can have intelligence without consciousness but could we have consciousness without intelligence? Do animals have consciousness? Do they have intelligence? I have been considering the idea that intelligence and consciousness, as experienced by humans, requires the ability to conceptualise time and place events in another time frame. I have been unable to think of an example that shows animals to be no more than event driven, in a similar way that current efforts in AI are. Like AI, animals have a number of programmed responses to events and can adapt those programs to produce better results. But unlike humans there seems to be no evidence of an ability to forecast the outcome of events where there is no previous experience.

What about intelligence. Do you think consciousness and intelligence can exist without each other?

I suppose if space ends somewhere then perhaps if you get to the boundary of space and manage to get past that boundary you will find yourself back in space; our space but the other side of it or at least somewhere else in it. The problem is that just leaving our space will make the non-space you enter become part of our space; because you are there. I don't think we can get to the edge of space though, we'll just keep going around and end up back where we started.

I would only consider rights if the robot could experience discomfort; either physiological or physiological. I see rights as dealing with this particular issue in the first place. If someone is daft enough to build a mining robot that's scared of the dark then it should be given the right to operate in an illuminated environment. Without feelings or the ability to experience pain then it wouldn't matter how a robot was treated. Even if it was self aware, enforcing an improvement in its working conditions would have no benefit; the robot experience wouldn't change.

So are you saying you do not like the idea then? Or do I detect a hidden enthusiasm for it?

I would like to see the Philosophy / Religion sub-forum return, but that's because I'm too damned lazy to sign up for another forum; I assume that if I was allowed to participate my current log-in would be sufficient. It would be good to get this thread back on track though because the subject of religion, rather than religious groups, is quite interesting and shouldn't need to be a cause for animosity. To that end I think science needs religion in so far as it needs faith. Without faith our knowledge won't progress as fast as it does. Religion quite often provides a set of moral rules that science needs to be aware of. Such rules could come from other places but a religious origin is quite beneficial. Religion I find takes on the responsibility of answering the questions science can't answer. Whether these questions are valid or not is unimportant. What is important is that they are being asked and people want answers. Once science moves another step forward, religion can take up the new unanswered questions that occur as a result.

Robot rights seem to have appeared in the news lately... Robotic age poses ethical dilemma http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6425927.stm Robots could demand legal rights http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6200005.stm Do you think robots should one day be given rights? And is there a need for something like Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics? Robot future poses hard questions http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6583893.stm For those that don't know them, they are... 1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. Giving rights to robots is clearly going to be an emotive subject for the world. Businesses may want such rights to be very limited so they can make use of robots in much the same way as they make use of non-autonomous machinery. Individuals may become attached to their household robot and consequently anthropomorphise them, resulting in a belief that some robots were being treated as slave labour. Asimov tackled this situation in his book "Bicentennial Man" and the film didn't do too bad a job of it either. To gain rights Andrew, the robot in the story, had to arrange to die so as to be given human rights. I think we are probably a very long way from having to consider human rights for a robot but rights of some sort may be on the agenda sooner than we think. As for the "Three Laws"; this is a mine field. Not because the laws are not good but because of the difficulty we will have just defining things like human, harm, existence, etc. Do we include psychological harm and can we mean existence of the robots current memory or do we mean its physical structure too? When does a human start and end? Are dead humans still human and if not when does death occur?