Strange

The opening line on a comedy show the other day was: "The British have got their country back! Unfortunately, it turned out to be Germany in 1936."

It depends on whether you are including the effect of the mass of the three bodies or not, I guess. If you treat them as "test particles" with no significant mass, then the lines will be straight (because the universe is, as near as we can tell, flat). Otherwise there will be some curvature introduced by the bodies.

Good example. Thanks. Or, better, to quote Special Agent Gibbs, "You think?"

If that were true, then you would get exactly the same results as GR, in all circumstances. So not the same as GR then.

OK. So it turns out that what we think of as straight lines are not always straight. That's it. If you are still struggling, then maybe it is time to accept that your brain isn't suited for the concept and just move on.

Just to be clear, there isn't a worldwide or European patent, but there are worldwide and European application processes (WIPO and EPC). If you file a WIPO or EPC application you must, at some point, file national applications in the USA and any other countries where you want protection. It is just a convenient way of getting to that stage. (I'm sure you know this, Sensei, but it confuses many people.) Edit: and, as Sensei says, if you go down this route you must file locally first. But then that is always best. I don't think there are specific rules against it, but the US patent office always looks rather suspiciously at applications from abroad that haven't been filed locally first. Also, you need to consider which are the most important markets for your invention. A patent protects against unlicensed manufacture, sale and use of your invention. So you may want protection in countries where it will be sold and used, as well as countries where it might be manufactured. So it might be important to file the patent in China, where a lot of manufacturing is done. (But the Chinese are notoriously lax about enforcing IP law.)

You can conceive of a straight line between two points in space, can't you? Does that line have to be made of something? Can you only conceive of such a straight line if there is something there fore the line to pass through? If we had a perfect vacuum with two objects suspended in it, do you think it would be impossible think about the distance between them?

So is the question about creating an AI, and then the ethics of turning the computer off?

I'm sorry, I don't understand what you are asking. You do not have to apply for a patent in Turkey first but it does make the process simpler. You can apply directly to the US patent office. You will need to use someone fluent in English with experience of writing patents. If you don't want general information, can you ask a more specific question? I should add that I am not in the US and all my experience of filing patents has been from outside the USA. Are you considering moving to the USA to make it easier to get a patent?

Generally it is best to file a patent in you own country first. You then have 12 months to file the same patent in other countries. Unless you have a lot of experience writing patent applications, it is usually a good idea to pay a patent agent to help you write the patent. There are some very specific rules about the language and format. Getting this wrong can mean your patent is invalid or does not give you the protection you need. You may also need advice on what things can be patented.

Damn. There goes that money-making scam scheme! How about a hole? Anyone want to buy a hole?

Complexity? I don't see any fundamental difference. There is no evidence that a brain can do anything that a computer can't. (I recommend reading Godel, Escher and Bach by Douglas Hofstadter if you want an easy introduction to computability and AI.)

Two, three and four are all a consequence of one. There is no order among them.

I did: "function of the brain". That means all the biochemical and electrical activity going on between all the neurons and hormones in the brain. Apparently it can.

This is what fMRI is used for, currently. It can generally be narrowed down to much more than left or right. Very specific areas of the brain are involved in functions like that. The other source of information is from people with various sorts of brain damage: seeing what functions are affected by damage in specific locations.

Perhaps: an emergent property of the function of the brain that gives us the illusion of a state of continuous self-awareness based on sensory inputs and memories. (I just made that up but I can guarantee it is better than "a voltage").

It is just a case of different words ("gravity" or "space-time curvature") describing the same thing. No bootstraps required. Space and time exist. Mass and energy exist. Space-time is affected by mass and energy. If you want to know why those things exist and why they affect each other in that way, well ... that's the way god planned it, I guess. (And you can choose whether "god" means a divine being or just "the laws of nature").

How can something as complex as consciousness be "a voltage" - is a battery conscious? Or a "water dipole" - is a glass of water conscious?

Because they have mass and energy, they certainly contribute to it. The gravitation field IS the shape of space (strictly, the shape of space-time). Curvature of space-time is gravity. Gravity is the curvature of space-time.

I think I have heard him say something along the lines of: look what a terrible institution it is; they pay me loads of money for doing nothing. And it is so undemocratic that there were several UKIP MEPs years before they managed to get one in the UK Parliament (by and that was by defection, rather than election)

I think so (you have an odd way of rephrasing things so it isn't always clear which end of the stick you have got hold of ... ) Well, you brought them up. But the universe is full of gas (mainly hydrogen and a small amount of helium, and mainly ionised). It is also full of various forms of radiation from stars, as well as cosmic rays, neutrinos and (probably) dark matter. These, like everything else, get moved around to some extent by the presence of gravitational fields.

What is "there" is the distance between those particles, grains of dust, etc. That is what changes.

Distance is a mathematical description. What do you think it is a description of? What material do you think it is made of? What material is a right angle made of? Is it the same material as a 30º angle? Do lengths, times, angles and curves really need to be made of material? Bizarre.

You can treat it as an electromagnetic wave (the classical view) or as photons (the quantum view). These are just two different descriptions of the same thing. Yes, although not as easily as with sound because the wavelength is much shorter so the phase and timing needs to be much more accurate. It is much easier to just use an opaque material. At the simplest level this is the basis of interference which is very widely used. For example, the LIGO instrument used to detect gravitational waves is a large inteferometer.

I am not sure if there is really any difference between saying that the fields are curved by space-time or the paths of the particles are changed by the curvature of space-time. Geometry changes so everything embedded in that geometry changes. (Although I suspect that trying to model quantum field theory in curved spacetime is non trivial.) You are still thinking of gravity as a force that acts on objects with mass. It isn't it changes the length and shape of "straight lines" so even massless things are affected.