Bullshit and BullshittersWe've had questions about lies and liars in the past, but this time we're asking about the sort of fantasist who constantly claims they've got a helicopter in the garden or was "second onto the balcony at the Iranian Embassy siege". Tell us about the cobblers you've been told, or the complete lies you've come out with.
Thanks to dozer for the suggestion
(
Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Thu 13 Jan 2011, 12:55)
« Go Back | See The Full Thread
I can grasp the idea that what we perceive is a simulationBut what I don't really get is the idea that we're all inside a computer chip. If that were the case, I find it hard to see where individual consciousness would arise from. I would prefer to say that our perception may be entirely simulated - and may well bear utterly no relation to the real universe - but I don't think a pure simulation can be taken seriously even as a thought experiment.
Something along the matrix lines, yes. But not a pure assembly of information. Data can't think.
(
MatJ LOOK, Wed 19 Jan 2011, 0:51,
1 reply)
Emergent BehaviourConsciousness could arise as an Emergent Behaviour in a complex system. This is a valid hypothesis for both the "muddy rock" and "matrix" scenarios: in the first the system is the brain, in the other it's the software that is simulating us.
"Data can't think" is equivalent to saying that "Meat can't think". It clearly does, though we have very little idea how that gets started, or even what it really means, at the moment.
Actually "Data (or Meat) isn't self-aware" is probably a better statement of the problem, as "think" could be interpreted as meaning "process input into output". And previous generations thought that playing chess required "thinking".
As a software engineer I can tell you that even apparently simple systems can generate extremely unexpected emergent behaviours! Not consciousness, perhaps, though there have been a few bugs which appeared to have a grudge against me...
(, Wed 19 Jan 2011, 9:49, closed)
« Go Back | See The Full Thread