jimmydasaint

I would red up on the background thoroughly before you continue with your criticisms quickquestion. I have a quote and a link here for you to read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test It does not seem to be a wholly rigorous or foolproof method - but it is a start...

And another one... rude shopkeepers who think they are doing you a favour when you are the customer with the money to pay their goddamn wages - I met two of these shopkeepers in the last few days who looked as if they were squeezing a lemon between their ass cheeks!

IMO, if I understand recursion correctly, it is similar to Descarte's cogito ergo sum ( I think therefore I am). This led him to believe that even if he doubted his existence there was someone who did the doubting. In short, it is thinking about the action of thought. This requires human experience of a "self" to which events have occurred about upon which thought could be "built". I don't doubt your programing brilliance. However, you are suggesting similarities to human qualities. How does the computer show that it is an entity to which things have happened from the environment and from which it has developed a personality. Compassion can be easily put on for show by people and computers alike but true compassion seems to be developed by character and a conscious choice rather than a copy of a compassionate action. For example, feeding of the hungry would be an act of compassion. A computer could ask people if they are hungry and then feed them, of course, but could it be programmed to feel that the action was rewarding and an act of growth of personality? If you could do that then you should be rewarded with a huge grant and a team of postdocs.

I think you could have included a crucial point to be made, which is the proposed mechanism of action: Notice that the tests were performed on mice and not in human tissue culture. The findings of the authors are encouraging but not final - the word "could" is pretty standard but important.

Moontanman, Hope everything is well with you friend. My only thinking for humans not being robots is down to this strange thing called consciousness which seems more well developed and sensitive than other species and the ability to think recursively: http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/page2/the-uniqueness-of-human-recursive-thinking We also, IMO, have a limited sense of free will - I know you are aware of this argument

Taken directly from the paper: http://www.nature.com/articles/nnano.2017.21.epdf?referrer_access_token=FecVks4NPyvNteP1z-MjKtRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0Ots75CYUuYzNmMOme5wcuAFIo8c_XiKU8aB_LOMMmyha3qDIM-vki2NbDmMWHoO4pcNgGenL9tp0uRu4vYdC2HqlNII8MMsWV5sYmmps43SNemK7MP6-F6_-zW0ElACBWr7l-6Vx5GLxaqHtOL8Ks4UXQpUjdzFD1f5ngOhJzinWIzC6HerzrULvM3hpDYSXw%3D&tracking_referrer=www.bbc.co.uk IMO, we now have a good solution for desalination of water using a relatively cheap material (graphene) but the flow rates depend on single salt solutions in controlled experiments where the flow rate achieved is approximately 5 litres per metre squared per hour. You can use thousands of graphene oxide membranes simultaneously to get a reasonable flow rate. However, the amounts of different salts and biological materials would need a pre-filter that would slow down the flow rate. Is it possible to give an impoverished coastal town with sufficient clean water for their drinking needs? I don't know - I am not an engineer or a materials scientist. However, I am sure there are such people on the forum who can chip in on this important matter. .

Of course, it's a bloody joke mate! However, the panic room, like the eponymous film, sounds like a good idea to me.

And another thing that really grinds my gears. As soon as my wife sees me sitting around "relaxing", she immediately thinks of something to do that takes about half an hour. Really, I should send her on holiday and build myself a panic room with drinks, snacks and the possibility of a small fort with room for one inside.

The difficulty seems to be in flow rate (not precisely mentioned) and also on the overwhelming saturation of graphene oxide membranes with the high salt and biological material content of seawater. A pre-filter for biological material could be used but what about the salts excluded from the final clean water? How easy would it be to get rid of the excess salts? I am very encouraged by the results and this presents hope for water management for people living next to significant bodies of water.

AAArgh! I wanted to post this Topic! Nevertheless, IMO, there is no way to tell if the Universe is a simulation or not. Is the double slit experiment telling us something? I don't know but I suspect that coincidence may be an illusion as well.

I agree with Strange. By all means hate religion; I have no relation to organised religion because all three mainstream religions have fallen into the same trap - formalism and dogmatic adherence. The God I believe in is an intellectual and a forgiving entity who has kindness as Its core value. Alan, you do come across as a man who believes all the bull**** that the media broadcast as truth but the great book "Manufacturing Consent" should enlighten you to the true nature of the press. http://web4.uwindsor.ca/users/w/winter/40-328.nsf/0/10ff8b04ff3a317885256d88005720f6/$FILE/Klaehn.critical.review.pdf

Try this video as a starter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mbmt-6o-Bp0

Thank you for that clear and compelling insight into the use of computers and neural networks. The insight about use of emotion is superb and worth some thought. so it is possible that emotions give humans the edge during conflict, or survival-type situations. Great post Delta.

It's Fronkensteen!

I am not being flippant but do computers fear the darkness if they are left for years in the darkness of a computer room? Do they have a history of "self?" It is exactly as you mentioned - they are logical machines.My question involved the possibility that logical machines are better at survival than an illogical and emotional machine if you could program it to behave that way.

I scanned the published paper rapidly and found the following in the Discussion section: http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/psp-pspa0000076.pdf

As a 54 yr-old middle-aged man, I have a number of things which really grind my gears. However, after reading another thread on how to pronounce De Broglie, I have to let off some steam. You Yanks are lovely people and I have an American colleague who is a good friend BUT... What really grinds my gears is the way you guys pronounce the name of the artist Van Gogh. It is not "Van go" - that sounds like an advert for a bloody delivery van. The pronunciation is "Van Hoch" like coughing out a half eaten kebab. Please get that right. IIRC, they don't pronounce the letter "G" so Greggs the bakers are not likely to be found in Holland. Now your turn. What really grinds your gears?

I have just returned to this thread after endless late nights at school. However, can you program a computer to think about the past, reflect on it and consider the best past of action for the future? Can you program a computer to have a sense of being on a historical timeline as a unique individual? If you can, then the computer ceases being a computer and you have created a humanoid robot. You chose the definition for fear in quite a clever way. What about fear as a rational or irrational response to past experience which creates the feeling of fear? If the choice is logical or illogical, which one will the robot choose? http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/page2/the-uniqueness-of-human-recursive-thinking I agree that there might be a spectrum of extraneous "stuff" but we seem to experience it as a part of our Facebook-style timeline that runs through our brains. Animals do learn from past mistakes but I don't recall, in my limited reading, of any animal that considered its place in its unique timeline in the same way as humans. IIRC, a chimpanzee which was asked, by sign language, what it was thinking answered in sign language :"food".

I won't debate First Cause argument. However, something capable of creating matter is not made of matter. By consciousness, I mean recursive thinking. I take it your computer does not pause to think about its thoughts. I would also hypothesise that few animals are able to access recursive thinking in a conscious human way. Btw, it is still a mystery how consciousness evolved:

http://www.biology4kids.com/files/studies_taxonomy.html

Let me absolutely clear on my stance here so there is no doubt. I believe in a Creator who created and then allowed his Creation to develop by putting onto place Laws of the Universe (known and unknown). I do not believe that this Creative Energy/Intelligence is a man. There is no "human" emotion involved, nor is there permanent meddling in human affairs. This is my own particular worldview which takes into account my present level of ignorance. However, there are several aspect of the Creation which I wanted to question because, inevitably, consciousness and language HAD to develop. Emotions and the sheer bloody irrationality of humans (witness behaviour at a roundabout in the UK) also had to arrive but where is the hard evidence? Now my cards are on the table, I can respond to the answers that were given by you guys. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1749-6632.2001.tb05717.x/full Maybe there are none. Where are the building blocks for text processing in your PC? The capability for certain behaviour does not mean that the behaviour itself lies in the genes. I do not agree with you here. There has to be, IMO, a genetic predisposition to human behaviours and emotions that are then shaped and selected by the environment. Another link for you to think about: I will admit that this is a complicated matter where scientific knowledge is rather incomplete. Reducing? I am not aware of that. And what evidence do you want? If some trait of an animal exists now, there must at least have been some evolutionary advantage for it. So consciousness must have been such an advantageous trait. I know it is more complicated than this, but at least conscious animals exist for such a long time, that it must have some advantage. Maybe I did not express my point clearly, but are there genes for empathy? I don't know but psycopaths seem to survive quite well without empathy. and have a huge survival advantage certainly in developed society and maybe in the battlefield but these are my opinions from what I have read. You are asking for reason, for a rationale of not being a robot. Your original formulation: So I introduced Mother Nature as exaggeration of your 'why' question. Newton: Newton explained according to which laws of nature works. Not why it works as it does. I suspect that you are dodging the issue by referring to the hypothetico deductive model. So you say that Newton described how an apple fell to the ground in a rectilinear path but not why? Semantic obfuscation Eise - semantic obfuscation!

No offence meant against the OP. However, I do worry at the crap we are given under the guise of journalism. This is not news and not worthy of being called news. This is as gossipy as saying that JayZ is a member of OTO. Who cares either way. My main worry is that agencies such as Sky news are reporting on events as news before they happen and decide, in an editorial fashion, to shape our opinions through a biased worldview. This is the hidden danger beneath the 90% of gossip bulls**t broadcast as news in this country, and probably in America.