Reaper

I wouldn't be asking this question if I knew..... Ah well, I guess we just have to sit tight and wait for the two days before the day after tomorrow, 1460.96 days from now....

I wonder what the day after the end of the universe will be like?

Since I do play chess competitively, I will tell you all how professionals typically think about chess: First thing is, is that calculation comes last when deciding on a move. They typically look for any patterns or recall previous positions that they have studied first, so that they can narrow their options. And then they look for any tactics (e.g. mates in 2, win a queen combo, etc). And then, they calculate moves that will lead them to the best position possible. "Brute force" methods are only necessary when the position is just so messy or when your options are so limited (e.g. one false move means you lose sort of thing). The way computers do it is actually not at all different than we do. Early supercomputers did rely primarily on brute force, like Deep Blue (calculating up to 200 million moves per second I think...), but that's not the case any more. Most computer programs usually have access to endgame, middlegame, and opening databases, and they are able to calculate a few million moves per second. But, that's also the same way we humans do it too, only that we can't remember nearly as much positions, or calculate as quickly, as computers do. Most of the time, grandmasters usually know what move to play because they've seen a position like it before, or studied it in detail. As such, they already have an idea of which moves tend to be better than others in a given situation. Our databases in our brains are quite limited compared to computers though. I guess the question really is, do we even want a robot that has human-like intelligence. Experience shows that humans aren't necessarily the sharpest sticks in the woods; they are quite irrational and their ability to use logic/reason rests largely on their emotional state. A machine, on the other hand, won't have that kind of weakness, other than the occasional glitch or bug. It seems that some of us here just don't realize that intelligence doesn't have to be humanlike in order to register as such; that's why the Turing test fails, because it can only test for humanity, not intelligence. What do you mean by "in general" though? Machines kick our ass in quite a bit of tasks. Read my note above about this. Why though? NFL only refers to the limits of search algorithms, not whether or not artificial intelligence is possible. Besides which, it is possible to get sentience from non-sentient processes; our DNA molecules do this all the time. And it is certainly possible for intelligence and consciousness to evolve from non-intelligent and unconscious lifeforms and processes, evolution on Earth is proof of concept. So, it stands to reason that if a bag of electro-chemical stuff can produce sentience, why not silicon chips, given proper wiring and programming? Turing machines are only hypothetical. They state that given an infinitely long piece of tape and a set of instructions, you can do virtually any computation or task in a certain amount of time. In theory you could, given a sufficiently long piece of tape, write out instructions that simulate human intelligence.

Hey, look what I found! As you know, the federal government approved of a 700 billion dollar bailout just recently. And, well, it turns out that the bailout money isn't being used to bailing the economy out: http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/CompanyFocus/10-worst-bailout-boondoggles.aspx So, what do you think awaits the future of the global economy now?

Filters only keep microscopic particles, ash, and other toxins from getting into the air, or into your lungs, where ever they happened to be applied. They are used quite often and are common place, either in factories (where they remove little tiny metallic particles and ash), or sometimes in the household (removing dust). It doesn't actually make the source less polluting in and of itself though, all it does is divert the trash somewhere else. You still have to deal with disposal, and in the case of industrial filters, you can't always just dump it into the environment. Until you have to start replacing them. Filters get quite dirty very quickly, especially if you are going to put them in smokestacks. And its a lot harder to recycle industrial filters because of the types of toxins that get stuck on them, so most of the time they are just simply discarded. The costs can pile up quite quickly.

F=ma is also a way of expressing F=dp/dt, the change of momentum with respect to time.

Happy holidays to all! With any luck you might get a lump of coal in your stocking

All filters do is improve the quality of the air, they don't actually reduce the pollution produced by them. I certainly think that we should put filters on every smokestack we find, but it is very costly; while you can certainly justify their use in cities, I don't think they will put them on powerplants in remote areas (and again, you still have to deal with the waste)... I think that we should not delay the switch any longer than we need to. We can certainly make the switch now, it's just a matter of political will. It will certainly take time, no doubt, but that doesn't mean that we should just keep on procrastinating. After all, in the time that we exchanged posts, tens of millions of tons of pollutants were released into the environment from those coal power plants...

Because it doesn't really matter. Coal technology has always been dirty and problematic from the beginning, and no matter what you do with it, it is very costly and difficult to mitigate any pollution or other toxins that result from their use. Certainly far more so than it is to just simply switch to cleaner solutions. For instance, you mentioned "clean coal tech" on another thread. But there is no such thing, all they really mean is that they will just bury the CO2. Putting filters on them doesn't actually filter out any of the greenhouse gases being emitted, for the most part filters are only used to clean out dust and microscopic particles (not molecules or gases). And then there is the fact that if we did start going back to coal on a large scale then you have the exact same problem that you do with oil, simply there just isn't enough to go around for very long. Putting filters isn't going to solve any problems, it just simply moves the problems elsewhere. You still need to dispose of the waste (and believe me, the stuff that gets on industrial filters isn't something you can just throw out into the environment). You are still emitting greenhouse gases. And, you are not diversifying your energy sources, which by the way is something we need to do, and quickly. In short, coal is just simply a dead end; any perceived benefits are far, far outweighed by the cons.

Don't worry about that, I already beat you by several inches. Oh, nothing really, I just happen to find you very amusing. Science forums all have the tendency to give every idiot that comes along a sporting chance, and while there are weaknesses with that approach (not to be critical mods, but sometimes you DO drag things out much longer than they need to be), it does certainly allow the possibility of comic relief. After all, our real lives can be quite stressful at times.... So I take it you DO admit that you are a sockpuppet..... :ROFL: If you knew your problems, tell me, do you know that you just owned yourself then?

Alright, I'll concede that one, it is a bit of a stretch.

I am on the autistic spectrum. Ugh... This is so stupid. You know very well that you will get banned anyway, so what is the point of trying to troll (not that your good at it anyway)?

Dude, this is so pathetic. It's quite comical actually, but in a sad sort of way.

Then you are so sadly mistaken, because they have surpassed us in many areas already, such as playing chess or driving. Also, they learn much faster than we can in general. They far surpass us in body, and they can certainly do math better than we can. Whose to say that they won't one day understand things and think much better than we can too?

ANYWAYS, back on topic. You might want to read this book review from MIT press, it does a very good job explaining all of the horrid details, so that you don't have to : http://web.mit.edu/~bmonreal/www/Null_Physics_Review.html Don't worry, your suspicions about this book aren't misguided; this book is complete trash:

This thread seems to me that it has been plagiarized from somewhere. I haven't been arsed to actually find the article, maybe you guys can, but something doesn't seem right about this thread.... I feel like I've seen this somewhere before.

Thanks for the info! I'm sure I will use this for when I ever decide to get my own aquarium

Alright everybody, he's been banned. Turns out he was a sockpuppet of Graviphoton. Move on, nothing to see here.

Excuse me? I was keeping with your theme on showing the flaws with this assumption. But then, why worry about all of that, huh. You can't possibly let me rain on your parade, so why not just ignore all of the problems that it will probably cause.... The question then is, do you think the pros are outweighted by the cons? Given a potential ice age in Europe as a worst case scenario, me thinks not at all.

Respect is earned, Tom Vose. Prove to us you deserve any, and then maybe we will start having more faith in your statements.

I'm not demanding that you do. But given that you managed to produce 92 pages of crap all over this site, and then always remind us that you are indeed a scientist, leaves one quite skeptical, naturally. So, I'm interested in what, exactly, you do. All of the other scientists on this site don't keep the nature of their work private at all. Swansont, for example, works on atomic clocks. Severian is one of the lucky particle physicists working on the LHC, and Lucaspa is a biomedical researcher somewhere in NY. Just to give a sample. How about you? Please share with us about the nature of your work or research.

I know. But again it doesn't have to literally shut down and stop completely for it to have some serious effects.... Besides which, the Gulf Stream shutdown is just one of many problems should AGW be allowed to take its course.

So, Mr.Scientist, what exactly is the nature of your work? Do you have any publications you would like to share with us, or do you work on projects for companies, your past work, etc?

So what happens to Europe when the Gulf Stream shuts down because of Global Warming? But I suppose we don't have to contemplate such issues when there's always a bright side to this, don't we. EDIT: I finished reading the article. The information that is presented is not new, it was well known that we humans have been having a noticeable effect on the environment long before the Industrial Revolution. The difference now is that the changes are happening much too quickly. That's the point you seem to keep missing on a consistent basis.

Go right ahead darling. Not that it matters, I didn't do anything wrong.