h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

As we don't have a new one yet, here it is. I'm sure CS will be in momentarily to remind us of the minutes. We were, in the last forum, discussing the nature of intelligence, and whether man could create an intelligent computer.

-jb

Yeah, we broke the "Three Clicks and you're out" rule quite a ways back. And the conversation about AI was just getting good!

So on that note...

The positronic brain (which I referred to ever so subtly a couple days ago) is a work of fiction. The mechanics as described in the Robot novels will probably never be realized, but a device that behaves as the Posironic Brain is described may be on humanity's (distant) horizon. In the Asimov fiction the Three Laws of Robotics are part of the inherant structure of the positronic brain and not actually "programmed" in the sense of the word that we know it.

The series of novels using the character or R. Daneel Olivlaw deal with just how to get around those pesky laws of robotics and get robots to kill.

Red_Dice: The point I was trying to make with the Hexapawn reference is that "learning machines" had been conceptualized and realized oh so very long ago. Yes, things have come a long way, yet they could be said to have begun by teaching machines how to learn from losing.

I'm sorry, but I can't help calling them computers -- even if they are made out of different materials and are structured very differently.

We are currently making a transition from aluminum to copper in our PCs. By the time something akin to a positronic brain is possible, we may easily have transitioned to crystal-based hard drives and circuitry which integrates with living tissue. There is enough research to determine that both are feasible.

But if computers became gaseous, they would still be computers to me. In my mind, anything that transcends simple mechanics and becomes capable of processing information and objects without movement is no longer a "machine."

Three cheers for the h2g2 programmers. Looks like we won't really need to bother anymore about that '3 clicks' rule. Not that we were anyway...

Computer/machine/robot/droid...it's all just semantics. I think anything with sentience should be called a Person and anything without is a Thing. That keeps it clear....er, or something...

Yeah but what the hell is sentience, anyways? Just a byproduct, an epiphenomenonal manifestation of matter/energy organized into patterns of sufficient complexity. I think slime molds are a really neat example of the mystery at the heart of this. Individual spores are just blobs of plant matter. When you get a pile of them together, though, the community will form itself into a slug-thing and crawl around looking for a place to plant itself. When it finds such a place, it sends up a stalk with a spore pod on the end of it, blows its load, and then the community breaks up. In this case, the intelligence of the thing is not residing in the hardware of the individual components, but across the software of the amalgamation. Cool, eh?

That is quite cool. I'm continually fascinated by the weirdness that exists in the natural world.

So, if you created a sentient computer, what OS would it run?

*ducks and hides before anyone can start throwing things*

Okay, perhaps I have been a bit remiss, but in my defense, I knew the new stuff was coming out soon, and knew the "three clicks" rule was doomed to die a happy death. Plus, I hate to kill off a good discussion. Anyway, I made some rather eloquent remarks in the old forum (didn't notice there were more posts below it... guess the new stuff will require some adjustment as well) about what we can do now, and ended it with a rather splendid soap-box thingy. Your comments will be appreciated.

And now for the minutes...

Ahem. I regret to inform you all that our esteemed secretary, Mr. Darwin D. Ferret, has knawed the minutes from our last meeting into tiny strips, which he has then strung out all over the office floor. Those of you with a penchant for esoterica will enjoy a rare opportunity to read the hyroglyphic format in which they now exist, but to save time in this meeting, I will allow you all to do so in your own good time.

I forgot to announce my intention to be recruited for the FFFF.

I am Talene, Queen of Sticky Notes.

Thank you and have a nice day.

In enjoyed your soap box thingy, Colonel Sellers. It comes in very handy while travelling.

I just want to put in that I am trying to write something coherrent about religious abuse and would be very happy for any coments made.

www.h2g2.com/A400474

I meen: http://www.h2g2.com/A400474

Apologies for responding in the middle of a thread, but I'm kind of curious as to where this post gets placed, and the stuff I wanted to respond to was in Fragilis' post.

It could be my grounding in the science of information processing and electronics, but gaseous or otherwise, there will ALWAYS have to be movement of one kind or another to process information (or even data the two words are not synonymous) In our own brains there is movement when our neurons fire. It may just be electro-chemical movement, but it takes energy, does work, therefore its a machine. (I wonder how many watts a typical human brain produces? Hmm that's one complex circuit there... *I* wouldn't want to do the math.)

I guess in my minds eye, when I use a personal computer, I visualize the little electrons zipping through those microscopic transistors, each acting as a switch, standing in a line to create a state in a register which in turn send more electrons through more transistors etc. etc. ad infinitum ad astra forever and ever until it crashes.

Besides, even gears can transcend "simple mechanics" as demonstrated by the work of Charles Babbage. Still his Difference Engine and the never built Analytical Engine mechanical processing machines. The theory behind the Analytical Engine was proven a few years back when a museum built a componant of the Engine. Imagine a system of gearwork that could do the basic functions of a personal computer! ... in base 10 no less!

Machines are wonderful, wonderful things, even when they are in packages not easily recognizable.

re : soapbox eloquence...

I think the idea of a Library of Conversations is an interesting one. I seem to remember a similar idea was (vaguely) mooted a while ago on an earlier FFFF forum, but we never quite resolved the question of How Precisely Would it Work? These discussions seem to thrive on spontaneity, and any attempt to manage / categorise / define them tends to sort of kill them off a bit.

If only we had an intelligent Forum that could see when a discussion was getting a bit weighty and started sponteneously to organise it into a separate subject area for us. Now that *would* be useful...

I was sort of thinking the same thing. I've tried starting new conversations (in other areas) with specific topics I was interested in, and I didn't get any replies. That's kind of frustrating. It's much easier to follow and keep up with a running conversation than to check constantly for new ones.

Still, if multiple topics are being discussed inside the same conversation, then it would probably be easier to move one or the other to its own conversation...

heh...I dunno. Whatever works.

First, I want to comment to Englander's new entry. Yellow text is annoying when viewed in Alabaster skin. Also, check the spelling on the title of the entry. Finally, this is the sort of entry that annoys the heck out of religious people. I understand it should be read as pithy sarcasm, but I know too many people who don't have the requisite sense of humour needed to read it this way. Also, some people who have reevaluated their religious beliefs decided they like them after all. Those people really aren't mentioned in your entry, and that is perhaps unfair.

I can be very over-critical, so please don't take this too harshly. I think the entry is a very good idea, and shows some real promise. It just feels unbalanced in a way I'm not comfortable with.

Now, I'd like to reply to ZenMondo's definition of a machine. By this definition, all life forms are machines by virtue of containing internal movement of one sort or another. I think perhaps here we shall have to agree to disagree. I certainly understand where you are coming from. Your definition is valid, but I'm not ready to give up my own for it.

Sorry Zen - I took you the wrong way there... apologies

The real difficulty, for me, is not whether sentient machines are possible. It's whether they're desirable. The Luddite in me fears that in this rampant capitalist monster we like to call the World Economy, humans will be deemed first inefficient, and then a nuisance. On the plus side, software has a longer life expectancy than flesh and blood, so we might see some long term thinking happening...

It's about time you made it official, Talene!

All things in nature tend to disorder, and conversations are one of them. The idea behind the "conversations library" is that you have a central place, right here, where open-minded people like yourself can be drawn into whatever you want to discuss. Once a particular drift begins to take on a life of its own, it can be moved to a specialized forum to deal with that drift. A good example is the current artificial intelligence conversation... it is worthy of continuing, but attempting to continue it here leads to all sorts of difficulties, since we're also trying to move on to new business here. Therefore, someone could open up a thread in the Foundation, then notify everyone that it is open in this thread here. If that particular conversation begins to spawn additional topic drifts that are worthy of continuing, they could be spun-off that one into new forums of their own.

The whole idea behind the Foundation was to get freeethinkers together where they could just relax and be themselves. We've just gotten so big now that we might not all be interested in pursuing the same sort of conversations at the same time. I recall one particular time when the business forums lingered on faith for quite a while, and some people complained, thinking that there was more to life. Now I'm not saying that all new conversations should be started in seperate places, or that the business forum has outlived its usefulness. I don't want to put together any hard and fast rules on this sort of thing, because I hate rules, and because they're more trouble than they're worth. I think common sense should be the governor here... if you feel your comment belongs in the business forum, post it here. If you feel it deserves a forum of its own, create one. And if it seems that too many conversations are trying to occur at once, then it is time to split off into a new forum.

So... the moral of the story is, if you want to have that sort of conversation, this is the place to start it. Trying to do it in Ask H2G2 or something isn't going to be as rewarding, because it isn't necessarily going to attract the type of people you want to talk about that particular subject with.

However, if you are looking for ardent debates with believers, then this is the wrong place to do it. For that sort of thing, I would recommend you write an article about your particular viewpoint. If it is well written and within Guide guidelines, it will appear on the homepage, and the battles will commence. Do please invite us here, your humble friends.

Englander: I agree with Fragilis. Especially about the color... a more appropriate title would be "Ocular Abuse."

Englander: Aside from the awful choice of text color, I have a few comments on your entry.

First, there actually is such a thing as religion abuse, or usually called religion addiction, but your description doesn't really hit it. The description you give could be of any normal, religious person.

Religious addiction is marked by the same sorts of things that other addictive behaviors are marked by, such as putting the church ahead of ones own health and safety, or doing things that are damaging to oneself for the sake of the church (such as giving all worldly possesions, losing/quitting ones job, letting ministers and/or group members do abusive/inapproopriate things, drinking poisoned Kool-Aid...), Also, it is marked by intense feelings of guilt at the thought of leaving or quitting the group, and/or irrational fears of not being able to survive without the group. Often, people suffering from religious addictions are aware that the group is harming them in some way, but they are unable to break away because of these extreme feelings of guilt and panic. They often end up blaming themselves for the harm being caused and simply attach themselves more firmly to the group. It's a serious thing, and not just about going to church every sunday or paying tithes on a regular basis. It's not even about believing what you're told, at least not only that.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents worth, give or take.

I hope very sincerely that my last post did not seem caustic or overly critical. It happens that this is a touchy subject with me, due to personal contact with people who have serious problems in this area. However, it was not my intention to be unpleasant.