Queen bans fox hunting!

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by General Ludd
Precisely. It doesn't anticipate anything because it acts on a very rigid set of pre-determined rules that it has been programmed around. It doesn't react to it's surroundings, it merely applies it's pre-determined rules to everything.

I think you're misunderstanding what I said (or maybe I was unclear). The chess program doesn't let you make an illegal move, just like the universe doesn't let you go faster than the speed of light. Both you and the computer player are "within" the "universe" described by the chess program.

A fox, or a dog, can react to unexpected events.

So can a computer player in a chess program. However, the fact that it can't respond to impossible events is no indictment of it. The reason foxes are a bit more adaptable is because they do not have perfect knowledge of the rules by which the universe operates - but having that knowledge doesn't suddenly make you not self-aware.

It could reconzie it's opnent as a physical object, and perhaps assign a pre-determined meaning that had been programmed into it to particular facial expressions (with only mediocre success, I might add) but it wouldn't be aware of it's oponent as a being.

1) it doesn't necessarily have to be a pre-determined meaning. It can be trained (humans are trained to do this, too - babies have to learn the meaning of different types of body language, facial expressions, etc.) to understand them, through neural networks.

2) how is a fox any different, except maybe being better and faster than the average computer program at object recognition?

I "lose" because I would contest something?

Since you said you would contest that psychopaths have no empathy, and I pointed out that psychopaths are defined as having no empathy, yes.

How can you put yourself into someone elses eyes without being able to put yourself into your own eyes? (and bridging the gap between seeing and "seeing", as you've so liked to talk about)

You don’t have to bridge that gap. Hell, a ray-tracer sees something from someone else’s eyes!

How can you possibly percieve the thoughts of another being without being able to percieve your own thoughts?

You can’t, but you don’t have to perceive someone’s thoughts to try and predict what they are.

Again, if everything including sentience is the result of calculations how does a sentient being - ie a being that is aware that it is a machine - any different in function than a non-senitent being?

Because, for unknown and ultimately unknowable reasons, the calculations that result in a sentient being result in something that actually perceives things rather than simply knowing about them.

Or, even more importantly, how does this acknowledgment impart free will - how do the calculations stop being calculations and become choices?

Because will only makes sense in the context of a sentient being.

When everything, obviously (as you say) has to be a calculation, there can be no free will. There can be no choice. Only calculations.

Those calculations are choice.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Originally posted by molly bloom
So there's your definition of something that even experts can't agree on.

I'm obviously talking about the raw stimulus pain, not the intellectualized or emotional feeling.

"Despite the disclaimer, this definition DOES tie the sensation to the stimulus, perpetuating the centuries old fallacy. It does not, and cannot, explain many of the perplexing aspects of pain experience, and it does not consider the crucial influence of the brain on the sensation and the perception of pain."

"Pain is always subjective… This definition avoids tying pain to the stimulus".

PAIN provoked by touch, or no stimulus at all

Excruciating PAIN in missing structures (phantom pains), or denervated structures (below spinal cord section in paraplegics)


Did you miss something?

'Despite the fact that, almost entirely of my own inspiration, I've managed to come up with and articulate a philosophy similar or identical to that of a famous philosopher...'




Wow, we'd better move the Rockies and make way for your ego. Here's a hint: science has moved on since the days of Rene Descartes.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


Since you can't actually argue that I'm wrong, you resort to ad hominems.

And you would never do that, would you?

Read the thread. Don't be a dumbass.

I'm not even going to bother to repeat my arguments. I'll just let you be a ****ing moron for not even bothing to see that I've pointed out why this is completely irrelevent three or four times in this thread.

Unless you aren't sentient! that would be why you don't get it!

You seem to be completely incapable of comprehending this.

I really doubt that, though, and think you're either being obtuse or really are just stupid.

I've seen too many people just being complete morons in this thread

If you don't understand this, you are truly hopeless and you might as well shoot yourself for the betterment of the human race

Why the nervous system is a ****ing IDIOTIC argument:

Last response, just to show how STUPID GePap was being:

You're stupider than I thought.

I can't believe even you are too dense to grasp such a basic point.

Uh, you don't understand anything at all, do you?

basing ones morality on the particular chemical mechanism of thought is idiocy.

[MrFun]

I feel sorry for Kuci now.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by MrFun
I feel sorry for Kuci now.

Imagine he was your doctor, or your pets' veterinarian.


You'll get over the sympathy pretty quickly.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by molly bloom


Imagine he was your doctor, or your pets' veterinarian.


You'll get over the sympathy pretty quickly.

I was being sarcastic -- I swear I have no sincere sympathy for the bastard.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by MrFun


I was being sarcastic -- I swear I have no sincere sympathy for the bastard.

I was doing the irony on my irony board, MrFun.


Seriously though- imagine going to him with neuralgia or phantom limb pain, if he were a general practitioner- it'd be-

'There's no STIMULUS!!!! There's no PAIN!

You're just a machine!

I am Descartes !!!!'

[The Viceroy]

Hi Laz,
Certainly, it is not true to say ALL the countryside is for hunting, but I think there is a strong feeling within the countryside that its just another thing Townies don't understand. It certainly is not supported only by toff's with horses, as I cannot ride a horse, nor could afford to, yet I do not agree with banning it.

Im not sure about the experiences in Scotland, my understanding was they continued, but the kill is left for the gun .. I love the way the economist summed it up at the end of this article

http://www.economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=1337668

It is not clear that the fox has benefited from the subtle change of practice in Scotland. Being chased, exhausted and ripped to pieces by a pack of fox-hounds clearly “compromises the fox's welfare” (to use an official commission's wonderful phrase). But being chased, exhausted and shot does not sound a whole lot better.

I still conclude that cash strapped police will not have the resources to be bothered about it, and the hunts in this area will continue regardless. I wonder how many illegal hunts were stopped in Scotland ?? Unless monitored all the way, whats to stop the occasional pack of dogs going for the fox ?? who would know anyway. just seems unworkable to me.

Mind you, if the police decided to harrass the horse riding community rather than motorists doing 41mph on the A4, I guess I could see a positive side to it

[MrFun]

Originally posted by molly bloom


I was doing the irony on my irony board, MrFun.


Seriously though- imagine going to him with neuralgia or phantom limb pain, if he were a general practitioner- it'd be-

'There's no STIMULUS!!!! There's no PAIN!

You're just a machine!

I am Descartes !!!!'

Thanks -- now I'm going to have nightmares tonight about being tortured.

[Standup]

Certainly, it is not true to say ALL the countryside is for hunting, but I think there is a strong feeling within the countryside that its just another thing Townies don't understand. It certainly is not supported only by toff's with horses, as I cannot ride a horse, nor could afford to, yet I do not agree with banning it.

On the whole i would like to see it banned but i don't have especially strong views or didn't until i saw the actions of the countryset on their protest march.

Suddenly the police are brutal, they're being denied human rights, repressed etc. It was the two faced standards here that swung my opinion. Poll tax demonstrators, miners, students etc are all trouble makers, criminals and so on but the laws don't apply to a bunch of (on the whole) middle and upper class thugs who invade parliament and attack the police. They can't have it both ways - the law applies to everyone, democracy means that some governments you agree with and other you don't. According to surveys i've seen most people are against fox hunting and it was a manifesto promise. Tough.

Years of Conservative rule saw policies that devastated certain types jobs and communties but i don't recall editorials in the Telegraph going on about human rights or government interference.

I'd still rather the government sorted out my commute to work and the rail network though.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Originally posted by General Ludd
Precisely. It doesn't anticipate anything because it acts on a very rigid set of pre-determined rules that it has been programmed around. It doesn't react to it's surroundings, it merely applies it's pre-determined rules to everything.

I think you're misunderstanding what I said (or maybe I was unclear). The chess program doesn't let you make an illegal move, just like the universe doesn't let you go faster than the speed of light. Both you and the computer player are "within" the "universe" described by the chess program.

A fox, or a dog, can react to unexpected events.

So can a computer player in a chess program. However, the fact that it can't respond to impossible events is no indictment of it. The reason foxes are a bit more adaptable is because they do not have perfect knowledge of the rules by which the universe operates - but having that knowledge doesn't suddenly make you not self-aware.

Moving at the speed of light requires breaking the laws of physics. Moving a pawn like a knight requries breaking the laws of a game. Surely you're not comparing the two?


But you've inadvertadly demonstrated my point - a chess playing computer is limited to the confines of it's program, while a dog is limited ot the confines of the physical laws of the universe.

Can you see the difference?

A dog can react to unexpected events that it has never seen or been exposed to before, while a computer program can only react to what it has been programmed to expect. It can't react to unexpected events because it doesn't allow for anything unexpected to happen within it's program - and if something unexpected does somehow happen, it crashes.

It could reconzie it's opnent as a physical object, and perhaps assign a pre-determined meaning that had been programmed into it to particular facial expressions (with only mediocre success, I might add) but it wouldn't be aware of it's oponent as a being.

1) it doesn't necessarily have to be a pre-determined meaning. It can be trained (humans are trained to do this, too - babies have to learn the meaning of different types of body language, facial expressions, etc.) to understand them, through neural networks.

Oh, tsk tsk. You're comparing humans to robots now.

2) how is a fox any different, except maybe being better and faster than the average computer program at object recognition?

The difference is that a computer doesn't reconize. It is programmed to see something and told what to think. it can immitate the process of learning by being open to programming through interaction after the foundation to it's program has been constructed, but it is still the same. It has no concept of "being" it has no concept of "emotion" and it has no concept of facial expressions. It only has it's program routine. You couldn't throw something into the scenario that it wasn't told to expect, and get a reaction out of it.

I "lose" because I would contest something?

Since you said you would contest that psychopaths have no empathy, and I pointed out that psychopaths are defined as having no empathy, yes.

I wouldn't define them as such. You lose.

How can you put yourself into someone elses eyes without being able to put yourself into your own eyes? (and bridging the gap between seeing and "seeing", as you've so liked to talk about)

You don’t have to bridge that gap. Hell, a ray-tracer sees something from someone else’s eyes!

But it doesn't "see" does it and that's the point - that's the bridge to gap. You've been making distinctions between seeing and "seeing" all along. I'm using your terminology.

How can you possibly percieve the thoughts of another being without being able to percieve your own thoughts?

You can’t, but you don’t have to perceive someone’s thoughts to try and predict what they are.

How? A thought of another being is not something that a machine can physically detect. It's not something it can be exposed to. It's only something that can be percieved and speculated apon. And the very fact that a being is capable of reconzing another being as having thoughts to even "predict" or percieve in the first place is evidence that that being has thoughts of it's own - or else it wouldn't be capable of understanding what it is that it's "predicting" or pecieving.

Again, if everything including sentience is the result of calculations how does a sentient being - ie a being that is aware that it is a machine - any different in function than a non-senitent being?

Because, for unknown and ultimately unknowable reasons...

Well, there's a rock-solid argument if I've ever heard one.

the calculations that result in a sentient being result in something that actually perceives things rather than simply knowing about them.

But what is perception except a mechanical calculation of input?

Where does free will come into play if everything is a "determined" calculationi?

Because will only makes sense in the context of a sentient being.

So why are you talking about the human machine having will?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by General Ludd
And you would never do that, would you?

And yet I present arguments to back them up, I don't use them as arguments in themselves

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


And yet I present arguments to back them up, I don't use them as arguments in themselves

Oh wow -- I'm impressed by your higher standards in using ad hominems.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by General Ludd
Moving at the speed of light requires breaking the laws of physics. Moving a pawn like a knight requries breaking the laws of a game. Surely you're not comparing the two?

The game is a sort of universe, with its own physical laws, and two "inhabitants" - the players. Obviously, the computer and the person both exist in reality, but that's beside the point. The computer player, for all it cares, exists within the Chess universe, and moving a pawn like a knight would be a direct violation of the physical laws of that universe.

But you've inadvertadly demonstrated my point - a chess playing computer is limited to the confines of it's program, while a dog is limited ot the confines of the physical laws of the universe.

Not if the AI has a neural net or other learning algorithm (and the chess program is the computer player's universe). And the dog is limited to it's "programming" - it just happens to have an actual neural net.

A dog can react to unexpected events that it has never seen or been exposed to before, while a computer program can only react to what it has been programmed to expect.

No. A computer chess player does not have knowledge of every single possible arrangement of pieces on the board (that would require an enormous amount of physical memory and be pretty useless). In fact, they are highly adept at thinking up new arrangements. The limitation is in the universe itself - the Chess universe has such simple rules, and is so small, that the computer chess player actually can predict exactly the immediate results of an action, and can have a perfect imagination. I'd say this weighs more in favor of the computer player, not the dog.

It can't react to unexpected events because it doesn't allow for anything unexpected to happen within it's program - and if something unexpected does somehow happen, it crashes.

Uh, no, you're mixing up the computer player and the computer program. The computer program is the Chess universe - it doesn't let knights move like pawns any more than our universe lets people go faster than light (as far as we know). The computer player exists within the Chess universe.

Oh, tsk tsk. You're comparing humans to robots now.

they ARE robots! They are just robots whose processors operate in such a manner as to become self-aware! A sentient robot is perfectly possible, even made out of copper and silicon.

The difference is that a computer doesn't reconize. It is programmed to see something and told what to think. it can immitate the process of learning by being open to programming through interaction after the foundation to it's program has been constructed, but it is still the same. It has no concept of "being" it has no concept of "emotion" and it has no concept of facial expressions. It only has it's program routine. You couldn't throw something into the scenario that it wasn't told to expect, and get a reaction out of it.

1) in the essense, just like animals!

2) as I've said before, intelligence isn't the same as consciousness.

3) a computer can too do all of that. We may not have built any that are particularly sophisticated in that way, but that's like someone arguing before 1900 that no computer will ever, say, be able to prove a mathematical theorem.

4) Any indictment you make against computers applies equally to dogs and people, because they are computers too! Everything is a computer that determines its behavior! Why are you still talking as if that were in doubt, when it's even true a priori! Aargh, you drive me nuts

I wouldn't define them as such. You lose.

It doesn't matter how the hell you define the term - you could mean "teddy bear" by it - when you are trying to refute a statement by me. It only matters how I use the term.

But it doesn't "see" does it and that's the point - that's the bridge to gap. You've been making distinctions between seeing and "seeing" all along. I'm using your terminology.

Yes, well, you don't have to "see" from someone else's viewpoint to "put yourself in someone else's eyes" (i.e., figure out what their response a situation would probably be). All you need is general knowledge of the stimuli to which they are exposed, how their minds work, and (as an aide to the previous) how they've responded in the past to similar stimuli.

How? A thought of another being is not something that a machine can physically detect.

1) You can detect what a person was thinking in response to certain stimuli by looking at what they say and do in response to that stimuli. For instance, if you punched me and then I punched you, it would be reasonable to predict in the future that if you punch me, I will punch you, and that I will be thinking of punching you in the interval between.

2) That's a current technical limitation, not an inherent one. Assuming we could currently make very precise scans of the brain, we could *in principle* gather enough data to eventually determine (at least for the person we studied), from a brain scan alone, that person's thoughts.

3) You're point is otherwise valid, inasmuch as you are talking about perceiving anothers thoughts as one's own. But that is not required, generally, to determine a course of action.

But what is perception except a mechanical calculation of input?

Perception is what a conscious being does with stimuli, while perception is merely having the knowledge of the input in memory. When the mechanical calculation of the input is done in a certain way, it resuls in sentience and thus perception of what was merely perceived.

(from now on I'll try to uniformly adopt the convention of italicized seeing, perception, aware, etc. referring to when it's done by a sentient being, and unitalicized to refer to it in general (since something perceived is also perceived, but it is not necessarily the other way around))

Where does free will come into play if everything is a "determined" calculationi?

Free will is the determined calculation of a sentient being, because the being determines itself. A machine also determines itself, but will is meaningless outside the context of sentience.

So why are you talking about the human machine having will?

Because it's sentient.

[MrFun]

Let's see . . . . .

we have the Nedaverse for quite some time now.

It seems that a new universe is spawing, called the Kuciverse.