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Several times a month, I will be in a store aisle reaching for something and feel a hand going up the inside of my thigh. When I turn around to find myself alone with a woman, and ask her if she would prefer me to hold still so she can get a better feel for the situation, oftentimes she will act "shocked" claiming nothing had happened, it must be somebody else...

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Would there be a robot rebellion inside a robot rebellion?

Started by Chelagoras The Boulder, January 11, 2015, 11:50:34 PM

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Mesozoic Mister Nigel

The brain is nothing but a computer in  the same way a moose is nothing but a little red wagon.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


P3nT4gR4m

Fair enough. I'm sure you'll be brimming with example of things it does other than process information (ie. computes)

One will do just fine.

I'm up to my arse in Brexit Numpties, but I want more.  Target-rich environments are the new sexy.
Not actually a meat product.
Ass-Kicking & Foot-Stomping Ancient Master of SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK
Awful and Bent Behemothic Results of Last Night's Painful Squat.
High Altitude Haggis-Filled Sex Bucket From Beyond Time and Space.
Internet Monkey Person of Filthy and Immoral Pygmy-Porn Wart Contagion
Octomom Auxillary Heat Exchanger Repairman
walking the fine line line between genius and batshit fucking crazy

"computation is a pattern in the spacetime arrangement of particles, and it's not the particles but the pattern that really matters! Matter doesn't matter." -- Max Tegmark

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

#77
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on January 30, 2015, 07:33:43 PM
Fair enough. I'm sure you'll be brimming with example of things it does other than process information (ie. computes)

One will do just fine.

The brain is the home of the master sex hormone regulator, that tells the body to mature, as well as doing a host of other things.

I'm fairly sure that the determined believer can figure out a way to reduce anything in the universe to "processing information", right up to and including life itself, which appears to be the level of consideration with which you've dismissed everything from the millions of permutations of neurotransmitter and hormonal communications, to DNA expression itself.

In my opinion, it's a real stretch to reduce cell functionality and DNA expression to "a computer", but if that's the basic unit you believe all information processing reduces to, I have no more reason to dissuade you than to try to dissuade a Mormon from wearing magic underwear.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."



Mesozoic Mister Nigel

"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


P3nT4gR4m

Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on January 30, 2015, 11:40:05 PM
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on January 30, 2015, 07:33:43 PM
Fair enough. I'm sure you'll be brimming with example of things it does other than process information (ie. computes)

One will do just fine.

The brain is the home of the master sex hormone regulator, that tells the body to mature, as well as doing a host of other things.

I'm fairly sure that the determined believer can figure out a way to reduce anything in the universe to "processing information", right up to and including life itself, which appears to be the level of consideration with which you've dismissed everything from the millions of permutations of neurotransmitter and hormonal communications, to DNA expression itself.

In my opinion, it's a real stretch to reduce cell functionality and DNA expression to "a computer", but if that's the basic unit you believe all information processing reduces to, I have no more reason to dissuade you than to try to dissuade a Mormon from wearing magic underwear.

You're talking about how it does what it does. That's your field. My field is information processing. I'm interested in what it is that comes out of all that stuff. It's signals. It's information. It changes and reads and stores and spits out signal. I don't particularly know or even care much how it does all that, aside from a vague curiosity. I know it's spectacular, I know it's all of those things, some weird kind of high frequency harmonic mexican waves flying back and forth, right down to tiny little bits of tubing, growing about all over the place. I dig it but the part of my attention which I devote to in depth study is always the signals themselves. The voltages or chemicals or whatever it is results in signals. These signals speak their own kind of emergent language. Call it the mind, call it consciousness, it's a program. Signals.

I'm up to my arse in Brexit Numpties, but I want more.  Target-rich environments are the new sexy.
Not actually a meat product.
Ass-Kicking & Foot-Stomping Ancient Master of SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK
Awful and Bent Behemothic Results of Last Night's Painful Squat.
High Altitude Haggis-Filled Sex Bucket From Beyond Time and Space.
Internet Monkey Person of Filthy and Immoral Pygmy-Porn Wart Contagion
Octomom Auxillary Heat Exchanger Repairman
walking the fine line line between genius and batshit fucking crazy

"computation is a pattern in the spacetime arrangement of particles, and it's not the particles but the pattern that really matters! Matter doesn't matter." -- Max Tegmark

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on January 31, 2015, 01:16:19 AM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on January 30, 2015, 11:40:05 PM
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on January 30, 2015, 07:33:43 PM
Fair enough. I'm sure you'll be brimming with example of things it does other than process information (ie. computes)

One will do just fine.

The brain is the home of the master sex hormone regulator, that tells the body to mature, as well as doing a host of other things.

I'm fairly sure that the determined believer can figure out a way to reduce anything in the universe to "processing information", right up to and including life itself, which appears to be the level of consideration with which you've dismissed everything from the millions of permutations of neurotransmitter and hormonal communications, to DNA expression itself.

In my opinion, it's a real stretch to reduce cell functionality and DNA expression to "a computer", but if that's the basic unit you believe all information processing reduces to, I have no more reason to dissuade you than to try to dissuade a Mormon from wearing magic underwear.

You're talking about how it does what it does. That's your field. My field is information processing. I'm interested in what it is that comes out of all that stuff. It's signals. It's information. It changes and reads and stores and spits out signal. I don't particularly know or even care much how it does all that, aside from a vague curiosity. I know it's spectacular, I know it's all of those things, some weird kind of high frequency harmonic mexican waves flying back and forth, right down to tiny little bits of tubing, growing about all over the place. I dig it but the part of my attention which I devote to in depth study is always the signals themselves. The voltages or chemicals or whatever it is results in signals. These signals speak their own kind of emergent language. Call it the mind, call it consciousness, it's a program. Signals.

Hokay then. By that definition, everything is computers. 

Everything everywhere is exactly the same. It's computers all the way down. :lulz:
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


The Wizard Joseph

Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on January 31, 2015, 02:38:42 AM
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on January 31, 2015, 01:16:19 AM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on January 30, 2015, 11:40:05 PM
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on January 30, 2015, 07:33:43 PM
Fair enough. I'm sure you'll be brimming with example of things it does other than process information (ie. computes)

One will do just fine.

The brain is the home of the master sex hormone regulator, that tells the body to mature, as well as doing a host of other things.

I'm fairly sure that the determined believer can figure out a way to reduce anything in the universe to "processing information", right up to and including life itself, which appears to be the level of consideration with which you've dismissed everything from the millions of permutations of neurotransmitter and hormonal communications, to DNA expression itself.

In my opinion, it's a real stretch to reduce cell functionality and DNA expression to "a computer", but if that's the basic unit you believe all information processing reduces to, I have no more reason to dissuade you than to try to dissuade a Mormon from wearing magic underwear.

You're talking about how it does what it does. That's your field. My field is information processing. I'm interested in what it is that comes out of all that stuff. It's signals. It's information. It changes and reads and stores and spits out signal. I don't particularly know or even care much how it does all that, aside from a vague curiosity. I know it's spectacular, I know it's all of those things, some weird kind of high frequency harmonic mexican waves flying back and forth, right down to tiny little bits of tubing, growing about all over the place. I dig it but the part of my attention which I devote to in depth study is always the signals themselves. The voltages or chemicals or whatever it is results in signals. These signals speak their own kind of emergent language. Call it the mind, call it consciousness, it's a program. Signals.

Hokay then. By that definition, everything is computers. 

Everything everywhere is exactly the same. It's computers all the way down. :lulz:

:eek:
But what if that's EXACTLY how the universe functions. I mean just what if the signals and 'static' apparent in the world we have learned to see in the last couple centuries, the intergalactic and subatomic alike, are all non random calculations going on.
The Singularity already happened and there was a loud bang as It got going.
You can't get out backward.  You have to go forward to go back.. better press on! - Willie Wonka, PBUH

Life can be seen as a game with no reset button, no extra lives, and if the power goes out there is no restarting.  If that's all you see life as you are not long for this world, and never will get it.

"Ayn Rand never swung a hammer in her life and had serious dominance issues" - The Fountainhead

"World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation."
- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality :lulz:

"You program the controller to do the thing, only it doesn't do the thing.  It does something else entirely, or nothing at all.  It's like voting."
- Billy, Aug 21st, 2019

"It's not even chaos anymore. It's BANAL."
- Doktor Hamish Howl

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on January 31, 2015, 04:20:04 AM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on January 31, 2015, 02:38:42 AM
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on January 31, 2015, 01:16:19 AM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on January 30, 2015, 11:40:05 PM
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on January 30, 2015, 07:33:43 PM
Fair enough. I'm sure you'll be brimming with example of things it does other than process information (ie. computes)

One will do just fine.

The brain is the home of the master sex hormone regulator, that tells the body to mature, as well as doing a host of other things.

I'm fairly sure that the determined believer can figure out a way to reduce anything in the universe to "processing information", right up to and including life itself, which appears to be the level of consideration with which you've dismissed everything from the millions of permutations of neurotransmitter and hormonal communications, to DNA expression itself.

In my opinion, it's a real stretch to reduce cell functionality and DNA expression to "a computer", but if that's the basic unit you believe all information processing reduces to, I have no more reason to dissuade you than to try to dissuade a Mormon from wearing magic underwear.

You're talking about how it does what it does. That's your field. My field is information processing. I'm interested in what it is that comes out of all that stuff. It's signals. It's information. It changes and reads and stores and spits out signal. I don't particularly know or even care much how it does all that, aside from a vague curiosity. I know it's spectacular, I know it's all of those things, some weird kind of high frequency harmonic mexican waves flying back and forth, right down to tiny little bits of tubing, growing about all over the place. I dig it but the part of my attention which I devote to in depth study is always the signals themselves. The voltages or chemicals or whatever it is results in signals. These signals speak their own kind of emergent language. Call it the mind, call it consciousness, it's a program. Signals.

Hokay then. By that definition, everything is computers. 

Everything everywhere is exactly the same. It's computers all the way down. :lulz:

:eek:
But what if that's EXACTLY how the universe functions. I mean just what if the signals and 'static' apparent in the world we have learned to see in the last couple centuries, the intergalactic and subatomic alike, are all non random calculations going on.
The Singularity already happened and there was a loud bang as It got going.

If I wanted to spend my time doing thought experiments about the true nature of reality, I would have majored in philosophy.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


P3nT4gR4m

Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on January 31, 2015, 02:38:42 AM
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on January 31, 2015, 01:16:19 AM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on January 30, 2015, 11:40:05 PM
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on January 30, 2015, 07:33:43 PM
Fair enough. I'm sure you'll be brimming with example of things it does other than process information (ie. computes)

One will do just fine.

The brain is the home of the master sex hormone regulator, that tells the body to mature, as well as doing a host of other things.

I'm fairly sure that the determined believer can figure out a way to reduce anything in the universe to "processing information", right up to and including life itself, which appears to be the level of consideration with which you've dismissed everything from the millions of permutations of neurotransmitter and hormonal communications, to DNA expression itself.

In my opinion, it's a real stretch to reduce cell functionality and DNA expression to "a computer", but if that's the basic unit you believe all information processing reduces to, I have no more reason to dissuade you than to try to dissuade a Mormon from wearing magic underwear.

You're talking about how it does what it does. That's your field. My field is information processing. I'm interested in what it is that comes out of all that stuff. It's signals. It's information. It changes and reads and stores and spits out signal. I don't particularly know or even care much how it does all that, aside from a vague curiosity. I know it's spectacular, I know it's all of those things, some weird kind of high frequency harmonic mexican waves flying back and forth, right down to tiny little bits of tubing, growing about all over the place. I dig it but the part of my attention which I devote to in depth study is always the signals themselves. The voltages or chemicals or whatever it is results in signals. These signals speak their own kind of emergent language. Call it the mind, call it consciousness, it's a program. Signals.

Hokay then. By that definition, everything is computers. 

Everything everywhere is exactly the same. It's computers all the way down. :lulz:

Here's how it works. If you can program it, it's a computer. So yeah, at the molecular level, that's exactly what dna is. Carrying out predefined instructions. Processing information. I've been working with "traditional" computers for 20-odd years now so don't take my word for it. Think bioinformatics, think computational neuroscience (the clue is in the name) I was of the impression that these were genuine avenues of scientific enquiry but hey, maybe it's psuedoscience? And yeah, computers all the way down, as far as I'm aware information theory has already gone there. Not sure if I'm buying it yet but if someone brings out an sdk I'm in.

Hey, look, I couldn't really give a shit. Have it your way, the brain doesn't compute, it's the immortal soul breathed into it by god, right?

I'm up to my arse in Brexit Numpties, but I want more.  Target-rich environments are the new sexy.
Not actually a meat product.
Ass-Kicking & Foot-Stomping Ancient Master of SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK
Awful and Bent Behemothic Results of Last Night's Painful Squat.
High Altitude Haggis-Filled Sex Bucket From Beyond Time and Space.
Internet Monkey Person of Filthy and Immoral Pygmy-Porn Wart Contagion
Octomom Auxillary Heat Exchanger Repairman
walking the fine line line between genius and batshit fucking crazy

"computation is a pattern in the spacetime arrangement of particles, and it's not the particles but the pattern that really matters! Matter doesn't matter." -- Max Tegmark

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on January 31, 2015, 10:12:45 AM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on January 31, 2015, 02:38:42 AM
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on January 31, 2015, 01:16:19 AM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on January 30, 2015, 11:40:05 PM
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on January 30, 2015, 07:33:43 PM
Fair enough. I'm sure you'll be brimming with example of things it does other than process information (ie. computes)

One will do just fine.

The brain is the home of the master sex hormone regulator, that tells the body to mature, as well as doing a host of other things.

I'm fairly sure that the determined believer can figure out a way to reduce anything in the universe to "processing information", right up to and including life itself, which appears to be the level of consideration with which you've dismissed everything from the millions of permutations of neurotransmitter and hormonal communications, to DNA expression itself.

In my opinion, it's a real stretch to reduce cell functionality and DNA expression to "a computer", but if that's the basic unit you believe all information processing reduces to, I have no more reason to dissuade you than to try to dissuade a Mormon from wearing magic underwear.

You're talking about how it does what it does. That's your field. My field is information processing. I'm interested in what it is that comes out of all that stuff. It's signals. It's information. It changes and reads and stores and spits out signal. I don't particularly know or even care much how it does all that, aside from a vague curiosity. I know it's spectacular, I know it's all of those things, some weird kind of high frequency harmonic mexican waves flying back and forth, right down to tiny little bits of tubing, growing about all over the place. I dig it but the part of my attention which I devote to in depth study is always the signals themselves. The voltages or chemicals or whatever it is results in signals. These signals speak their own kind of emergent language. Call it the mind, call it consciousness, it's a program. Signals.

Hokay then. By that definition, everything is computers. 

Everything everywhere is exactly the same. It's computers all the way down. :lulz:

Here's how it works. If you can program it, it's a computer. So yeah, at the molecular level, that's exactly what dna is. Carrying out predefined instructions. Processing information. I've been working with "traditional" computers for 20-odd years now so don't take my word for it. Think bioinformatics, think computational neuroscience (the clue is in the name) I was of the impression that these were genuine avenues of scientific enquiry but hey, maybe it's psuedoscience? And yeah, computers all the way down, as far as I'm aware information theory has already gone there. Not sure if I'm buying it yet but if someone brings out an sdk I'm in.

Hey, look, I couldn't really give a shit. Have it your way, the brain doesn't compute, it's the immortal soul breathed into it by god, right?

Quote from: Cain on January 30, 2015, 11:43:24 PM
Ahem.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


P3nT4gR4m

Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on January 31, 2015, 12:57:21 PM
Quote from: Cain on January 30, 2015, 11:43:24 PM
Ahem.

Given that it wasn't me that derailed a perfectly good AI/robotics thread with some holier than thou half arsed bullshit about biology, then yeah, "ahem"  :roll:

I'm up to my arse in Brexit Numpties, but I want more.  Target-rich environments are the new sexy.
Not actually a meat product.
Ass-Kicking & Foot-Stomping Ancient Master of SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK
Awful and Bent Behemothic Results of Last Night's Painful Squat.
High Altitude Haggis-Filled Sex Bucket From Beyond Time and Space.
Internet Monkey Person of Filthy and Immoral Pygmy-Porn Wart Contagion
Octomom Auxillary Heat Exchanger Repairman
walking the fine line line between genius and batshit fucking crazy

"computation is a pattern in the spacetime arrangement of particles, and it's not the particles but the pattern that really matters! Matter doesn't matter." -- Max Tegmark

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on January 31, 2015, 01:23:56 PM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on January 31, 2015, 12:57:21 PM
Quote from: Cain on January 30, 2015, 11:43:24 PM
Ahem.

Given that it wasn't me that derailed a perfectly good AI/robotics thread with some holier than thou half arsed bullshit about biology, then yeah, "ahem"  :roll:

If by "derailed", you mean "tried to respond to this question that was posted after nine days of zero activity in the thread", and if by "half-arsed bullshit about biology" you mean "has something of a clue how it works", you are correct.


Quote from: Chelagoras The Boulder on January 26, 2015, 05:19:56 AM
if robots like Asimo represent the forefront of autonomous bipedal robots, do you think there'll be a point where it'll be easier, at least in the short run, to "upgrade" humans into cyborgs since we already know how to run and jump and balance just fine without tons of costly research?

Regardless, you should try reading the link Cain posted, it's both good and relevant.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


The Wizard Joseph

Show me an AI that can take umbrage with another AI and get tetchy, and I'll show you humanity's likely successor.
You can't get out backward.  You have to go forward to go back.. better press on! - Willie Wonka, PBUH

Life can be seen as a game with no reset button, no extra lives, and if the power goes out there is no restarting.  If that's all you see life as you are not long for this world, and never will get it.

"Ayn Rand never swung a hammer in her life and had serious dominance issues" - The Fountainhead

"World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation."
- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality :lulz:

"You program the controller to do the thing, only it doesn't do the thing.  It does something else entirely, or nothing at all.  It's like voting."
- Billy, Aug 21st, 2019

"It's not even chaos anymore. It's BANAL."
- Doktor Hamish Howl

Demolition Squid

Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on January 31, 2015, 10:12:45 AM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on January 31, 2015, 02:38:42 AM
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on January 31, 2015, 01:16:19 AM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on January 30, 2015, 11:40:05 PM
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on January 30, 2015, 07:33:43 PM
Fair enough. I'm sure you'll be brimming with example of things it does other than process information (ie. computes)

One will do just fine.

The brain is the home of the master sex hormone regulator, that tells the body to mature, as well as doing a host of other things.

I'm fairly sure that the determined believer can figure out a way to reduce anything in the universe to "processing information", right up to and including life itself, which appears to be the level of consideration with which you've dismissed everything from the millions of permutations of neurotransmitter and hormonal communications, to DNA expression itself.

In my opinion, it's a real stretch to reduce cell functionality and DNA expression to "a computer", but if that's the basic unit you believe all information processing reduces to, I have no more reason to dissuade you than to try to dissuade a Mormon from wearing magic underwear.

You're talking about how it does what it does. That's your field. My field is information processing. I'm interested in what it is that comes out of all that stuff. It's signals. It's information. It changes and reads and stores and spits out signal. I don't particularly know or even care much how it does all that, aside from a vague curiosity. I know it's spectacular, I know it's all of those things, some weird kind of high frequency harmonic mexican waves flying back and forth, right down to tiny little bits of tubing, growing about all over the place. I dig it but the part of my attention which I devote to in depth study is always the signals themselves. The voltages or chemicals or whatever it is results in signals. These signals speak their own kind of emergent language. Call it the mind, call it consciousness, it's a program. Signals.

Hokay then. By that definition, everything is computers. 

Everything everywhere is exactly the same. It's computers all the way down. :lulz:

Here's how it works. If you can program it, it's a computer. So yeah, at the molecular level, that's exactly what dna is. Carrying out predefined instructions. Processing information. I've been working with "traditional" computers for 20-odd years now so don't take my word for it. Think bioinformatics, think computational neuroscience (the clue is in the name) I was of the impression that these were genuine avenues of scientific enquiry but hey, maybe it's psuedoscience? And yeah, computers all the way down, as far as I'm aware information theory has already gone there. Not sure if I'm buying it yet but if someone brings out an sdk I'm in.

Hey, look, I couldn't really give a shit. Have it your way, the brain doesn't compute, it's the immortal soul breathed into it by god, right?

This is basically just a different way of saying what the link Cain provided already said but...

There comes a point where using a metaphor actively clouds understanding. The point where you are saying 'it is computers all the way down' is probably a good indication of that.

What is the utility in trying to describe these things as computers? As Nigel has pointed out, the complex arrangement of biological components which make up a brain have many, many distinctions from anything recognizable as 'a computer'. Outside, perhaps, of the massively broad definition that they both involve signals which cause effects.

This is part of the reason I hate using metaphors in discussions/debates myself. When you say something is like something else (or worse, is something else) what you're doing is saying that the ways they are the same outweigh the ways they are different. Okay. But brains still aren't electrical tools created by people, despite them both being 'programable' in a broad sense. And apples still aren't oranges, despite them both being fruits. Saying that one is the other, just invites plenty of room for confusion and misunderstanding by glossing over the many differences between them in order to focus on the particular area of (apparent) similarity.
Vast and Roaring Nipplebeast from the Dawn of Soho