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Quick Notes
What We Did
Finished up the rear of our Nova with QA1 adjustable shocks and swapped out the drums for 12-inch discs
Bottom Line
Adjustability is the key to creating an all-out street-warrior
Cost (Approx)
$1,500 (front/rear), $700 (rear only)
When we left off in the July issue, our budget street Nova was slowly but surely morphing from a grandma-glider to a grand-slam corner-burner.
Unfortunately, we only had enough space to showcase the front-end install of Classic Performance Products' tubular upper and lower A-arms, coilover QA1 shocks, 2-inch drop spindles, and 13-inch front disc brake package. That just goes to show that CPP has got enough components to turn any bland Nova into a mean street-sleeper.
So we're back to illustrate CPP's rear big-brake upgrade kit along with an upgraded shock system by way of single-adjustable QA1s. After all, our goal for the Nova is complete control over adjustability so we can fine-tune the suspension for any application. Whether we open-track, autocross, or drag race the Nova, the tunability is there and that's most important. We can now not only correct and fine-tune ride height but even driveability by either stiffening or softening the shocks. Banking on CPP's unquestionable ability to produce high-quality components for Novas we went ahead and installed the rest of the front/rear brake kit, which included rear disc brakes to match the front's already huge 13-inch brakes. Our components included 12-inch vented and slotted discs, powdercoated calipers, and rear caliper shims for different rearend offsets to adjust for endplay in the rotors. CPP thought of everything you'd possibly need when it came to completing their upgrade. A new differential cover gasket is even included with the package to prevent a midnight run to the parts store.
Our front man, Craig Chaffers, was back to show us exactly how to complete an install of this magnitude yourself. The best part is he made it look simple-which it was. We even added a new set of single-way adjustable QA1 shocks to replace the Bilsteins. Look for a complete test of the new suspension in an upcoming issue. For now, see how we continued to transform this Nova into a real performer.


text:
World's End
Premiere Date:September 28, 2014
The end of the line is here. The Polar drivers face the long, difficult journey back down the world's longest seasonal winter road. Lisa has to make a game-changing decision…help a competitor push further into the arctic unknown or stick with her teammates and convoy back to Polar headquarters. Her decision could be costly as conditions quickly deteriorate.TV14 L
Upcoming Airings:
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- Howard Yee
- Brooklyn, NY
- United States
Software Engineer @ Rubenstein Technology Group,
This conversation is closed.
Can technology replace human intelligence?
This week in my Bioelectricity class we learned about extracellular fields. One facet of the study of extracellular field I find interesting is the determination of the field from a known source (AKA the Forward Problem) versus the determination of the source from a known field (AKA the Inverse Problem). Whereas the forward problem is simple and solutions may be obtained through calculations, the inverse problem poses a problem. The lack of uniqueness to the inverse problem means the solution requires interpretation, which may be subjective. We may also apply a mechanism for the interpretation; this mechanism is known as an AI. However, this facet of AI (document classification) is only the surface of the field.
Damon Horowitz gave a recent presentation at TEDxSoMa called "Why machines need people". In it, he says that AI can never approach the intelligence of humans. He gives examples of AI systems, like classification and summarization. He explains that those systems are simply "pattern matching" without any intelligence behind them. If true, perhaps the subjective interpretation of inverse problems is welcomed over the dumb classification. Through experience, the interpreters may have more insight than one can impart on an algorithm.
However, what Damon failed to mention was that most of those AI systems built to do small tasks is known as weak AI. There is a whole other field of study for strong AI, whose methods of creating intelligence is much more than "pattern matching". Proponents of strong AI believe that human intelligence can be replicated. Of course we are a long way off from seeing human-level AI. What makes human intelligence hard to replicate? Can it be simulated? What if we created a model of the human brain, would it be able to think?
Related Videos (not on Ted):
"Why Machines need People"
scott lee
Mar 8 2012: My Grandmother once told me "in a marriage, if both people are the same, one of them is redundant."
- +2
Why all this emphasis on making a computer simulate human intelligence when there are so many intelligent humans up to the task, and computers are so good at things our brains are poor at?
It is the symbiosis between humans and computers that drives the mutual evolution of both. For instance, everybody knows that the best chess player in the world is a computer. However there are also chess competitions where humans with the support of computer programs compete with each other. Interestingly, the team is better than either the best human or the best computer on its own. Furthermore, it is not necessarily the best chess player that makes the best team mate to a computer and vise versa.
Another thing with human intelligence is that humans are intelligent in different ways. Intelligence is measured across a variety of aptitude, and peoples strengths and weakness vary. This talk really drives the point home
On the question of why human intelligence is so hard to simulate, part of it is the amount of input we receive throughout our life in the process of developing into an intelligent adult. It would be interesting to see if people are trying to make a program that simulates the learning capacity of a toddler.
Computer intelligence will evolve in a way that is different from human intelligence. Though, I admit the exercise of trying to simulate human intelligence could lead to insight into both AI and human intelligence. Nevertheless, if we restrict our ideas about AI to human definitions of intelligence, we limit the potential of AI that will eventually exceed us.Mar 8 2012: I have written a number of blog posts on this and related questions. The topics below transition from where we are and why we're "not there yet" with creating humanlike AIs, through how to create non-intelligent machine learning systems that at least do useful things, through some views on what we should be doing to create humanlike intelligence, through to some musings on intelligence, entropy, the universe and everything. As far as the issue of consciousness, I try not to touch that with a 10-foot pole :-)
"Watson's Jeopardy win, and a reality check on the future of AI":
"Why we may not have intelligent computers by 2019":
"Machine intelligence: the earthmoving equipment of the information age, and the future of meaningful lives":
"On hierarchical learning and building a brain":
"Life, Intelligence and the Second Law of Thermodynamics":
I hope some of this is at least thought-provoking!
Mar 8 2012: So luke basically without reading these links yet, what are your thoughts on a learning thinking AI?
Mar 8 2012: Ken -- most of my current thoughts are in the links above. Happy to discuss once you've had a chance to peruse them :-)
Mar 8 2012: Ok i've read the first two of them and yeah it goes along the same lines of what i thought, which is uneducated.I've kind of followed how intel have stayed on course with moores law but this year or last year it "Ticked"? but theirs no "Tock" til two more years? and it's been a programmers nightmare trying to develop for the multicore bottleneck?
I know this is not what i asked but i can't see today's chip development ever getting to what kurzweil states unless there is a new element or design introduced?Here's what i found trawling one day.
It takes me awhile to read things as i tend to think it through then reread it.it's slow i know but it woorks for me.
Comment deleted
Dan Tech
Mar 9 2012: There isn't a multi-core dilemma. There is just people, that don't know any electronics and how to write compilers, and people that don't use modern technology. They will think this is a problem because they don't know any better.
- 0
Computers made past that point long ago. Computers today that is used for heavy calculations has thousands of cores. With common graphic cards you can do many thousands of calculations in parallel.
Ever heard of Open-CL? Check it out, you aught to know it.
Ever heard of High-frequency trading for example? They now use FPGA's, and can calculate and respond to hundreds of thousands parameters in parallel. These languages to program these parallel systems has been around since the 1980s.
And if you think thats difficult, then there is computer languages that fix that also. Check out Mitrion-C
This isn't a problem. Even programs like word and photoshop and webbrowsers, scales to thousands of calculation units. Just insert a modern graphics card in your computer.Mar 7 2012: I think you need to do a little more work on scoping this idea and conversation.
What I think Damon Horowitz was describing is "the chinese room" problem. i might be wrong of course.
Your question poses for me, lots of questions which i suppose is the point.
Define what you mean by Replacing humans. Replacing humans in what context. All decision making? some decision making?
Define what you mean by intelligence in this case?
Are you in fact alluding to the difference between symbolic (typically human) and subsymbolic (as far as im aware machines best attempts) logic?
If this is the case are you in fact asking if we can make machines concious ie: self aware. Which is a very different problem and leads into - for me at least - moral ethical and philosophical conversations.
Mar 7 2012: I believe "the chinese room" problem questions where the consciousness lies. Is the conscious being the human in the room because he's aggregated the information the room contains? Or is it the data source (the book/computer) in the room? Or is it the entire room itself? This problem is very thought provoking because we can easily give humans a "consciousness" but given a situation where the knowledge does not come from a human directly, it's harder to admit whether other objects are conscious.
When I say replace humans, I mean replace a human completely. Can we give it an artificial body and with all intents and purposes, it will act exactly like a human being, think it's alive, and assimilate perfectly with other human beings?
Mar 7 2012: We could also consider how the "Chinese Room" problem isolates an accepted intelligent being behind a deterministic program, and we find issue in whether the system shares the man's intelligence. This isolation suggests that even if we replicated every cell and function in a human being artificially, down to the atom, that artificial clone could not by our current means be determined one way or the other. Until we have ways to determine that another human hosts the same intelligence we observe ourselves to host, we cannot determine the same of a nonhuman being.Mar 8 2012: Mm, you could say that. I interpret the more lower level implication. The human in the room isn't the important point here. The "system" in the case of the Chinese room is the room and all it contains. This scenario teaches me that the system does not understand what its doing, it simply responds to an input with a pre determined output. Now, you could argue that human behaviour and intelligence is simply billions of cross talking Chinese rooms, and therefore human intelligence to be an emergent behaviour, but I think this is hard to prove.Mar 11 2012: On an ethical point of view, I think technological machines or devices lack a lot that is desirable in human intelligence. We tend often to forget that man is not only a deductively processing brain, but also a heart that loves, cares and feels. For instance, these machines produced by technology when confronted with new set of data not pre-programmed are stuck. My position is that technology is a useful tool, but it cannot do without human intelligence. Human intelligence can transcend to reach new heights.
Mar 11 2012: Agreed - but couldn´t we teach technology to take care and feel? Two questions go with this:
1.) Do we really want this? Don ´t we loose our uniqueness then? It is the same with animals - we believe also that man can do specific things that animals can not do... But maybe the delphin in the zoo is playing with us - instead we with him ?
2.) If we want it, is it really good technology still? Imagine a car that is full of fear to drive at night? A gun refusing because empathy for the enemy... A Strange question, I know - but a question that is logical once you want to make technology more intelligent and more human.
Mar 14 2012: I am happy with the way you answered . However, I have this feeling as if you are afraid to concede that technology cannot be given such feelings... Mankind is able to play with the material aspect of nature, but things or aspects beyond this materiality have proven to be beyond their reach. For instance, if you like movies, probably you have watched Bourne, how scientists tried to control man's loyalty, obedience... and later they had to face the sole result reached up to now that these feelings are metaphysical. I am contending that maybe one day we will achieve that, but for the time being... no illusion there.
The other thing you said about our uniqueness as human being. Do not worry about that... I most of the time argue that the scientific world has repressed more of our uniqueness to the extent that we think that will be the only thing we may loose. I hope you do not think that if given feeling they will be stronger than we are. maybe, maybe not. we are more than what is seen, measured. our uniqueness is beyond the current measures.Mar 14 2012: Interesting, technology that feels might not necessarily be helpful. I think the hardest part to replicating human intelligence exactly is finding a way to copy the emotions and seemingly irrational thoughts of humans. Sometimes I decide to sleep in on a day instead of doing work that I know I have. I can see AI making logical decisions and being more efficient than humans at some tasks, but find it hard to imagine them having emotional responses. I am unaware on how exactly our feelings are activated by our brain, so modeling this might be easier than I know.
Also, did you know there was a TED conversation similar to this: http://www.ted.com/conversations/1528/artificial_intelligence_will_s.html
George Kong
Mar 10 2012: Some of the posts within this thread refer to the P-Zombie (philosophical zombie), if not by name, then at least in concept.
- +1
The p-zombie is essentially advanced automata that acts identically to a human being, but possesses no consciousness.
My argument is that a p-zombie is an inherently contradictory idea if you have an inkling of how our own consciousness works.
Essentially, our actions - the things we do, the things we are capable, betray some degree of our internal minds. That we show capacity for learning, capacity for cognition, capacity for information processing... are because we do have those capacities. We can't show it, if we don't have those things. And we can't show the emergent results of the massively parallel, modular, auto-associative, probabilistic brain functions if we don't have those things.
And that... is pretty much the nature of our consciousness. The comingling of all these complex signal processing units, their iterative interactions, in the timely manner that they do, relative to each other as they are... can only result in the sensation of consciousness that we experience.
That said, if you suppose that we had the ability to capture all cases, present and future, and provide an output for each unique case (of which there would be infinite numbers), then I suppose the idea of the p-zombie would have some traction. Like a chinese room, receiving one input, then throwing out another.
But it would be more difficult to account for all the cases then it would be for an auto-associative adaptive learning system... like the brain... to emerge through natural forces. Would also be less efficient for us to design an 'intelligent' system that way, then to design one that could adaptively learn things.
That said... will the nature of machine conciousness... be even similar to human consciousness? Doubtful. Unless you were to replicate the critical conditions that make us 'human', including, but not limited to processing speed.
Mar 11 2012: Huh. That's a good point, George. Never thought about that.
Logan Crouse
Mar 9 2012: Not to spam the forum with lots of my rambling and randomly researched material, but there's a field of science whose job is to apply quantum theory to cognitive phenomenon:
- +1
All of this just reinforces the idea that the universe is an amazingly vast, intricately detailed place! With so many things still hidden from us, in plain sight, it makes me pause and ask the question: What if we *are* just matter? And then, taking a look at the way MATTER acts, we could be *just* matter and STILL have things exist beyond what we've seen so far or even what we *can* see here *because* of as yet unknown rules and interactions that science could determine.
Take for instance, notions within the scientific community that the universe is just a hologram:
or the idea of encoding information on the surface of a black hole:
http://www.theory.caltech.edu/people/preskill/blackhole_bet.html (Summary of article---"Your most precious theories have been (or must be) altered. Pray I do not alter them further.")
In fact, as we learn more about ourselves and the nature of the universe, thinking machines become downright plausible, and the idea of referring to tools and machines as "just matter" almost does an injustice to the mystery that still exists in plain ol' 3-Dimensional space.
So that begs the question---if we invented machines that can do these things as well as we do and outperform us in the only tests we know to determine consciousness, why wouldn't they be conscious as well?
But I am in emphatic agreement with you about scrutinizing these things and trying to determine if they truly encapsulate what it means to be conscious! Constant scrutiny and a healthy skepticism of ALL things is important!!!
Chase Allen
Mar 9 2012: Hey, Logan. You sound like a deep thinker. I like it! Here's some ideas for you to ponder, let me know what you think.
- +1
1. The human brain, the seat of consciousness, is too big, too warm, and too wet for any meaningful quantum phenomenon to contribute significantly to the phenomenon of consciousnesses.
2. Quantum matter can be transformed into energy, that's where it comes from and that's where it goes. But yeah, take this line of reasoning all the way back to the big bang... from where did the big bang come?
3. Quantum computing is coming along... have you heard of biological computing? I have heard some things along the lines of DNA uses a four dimensional coding scheme, computers traditionally have used a two dimensional (binary) scheme. I think there is some sort of research being done into organic computing, using more than 2 dimensions for information coding.
4. We (human beings) are just matter with special properties.
5. Are humans truly conscious? Are dogs? Are ants? What is the definition of consciousness? How do you personally define consciousness?
Thanks for posting and reading!
Mar 9 2012: Howdy, Chase! Well, I try, but no matter how deep I think, it never quite seems to me to be enough. Does it ever? :)
1. Yeah, I'd come across a few things stating something to that effect. But take a look at this:
It's an article about the way we smell things, and how we are actually absorbing quanta and processing them as smells. One of our basic five senses could be quanta-dependent or even quanta-based.
I personally found this quite Intriguing when I heard of it! Let us not forget how intimately linked with memory our sense of smell is, and the subsequent implication of quanta being at least tangentially related to *that* function, which is itself intimately tied to studies of intelligence in human beings! A long chain of dependencies, any one of which further research could crack or change, to be sure, but to a deep thinker, perhaps everything looks like a deep complexity, and I am making something of nothing. :)
2. Yeah, you kinda answered your own question there. To answer where the energy for the Big Bang came from, there is a theory floating around that multiple universes exist, one right next to the other, and that, undulating and vibrating as two-dimensional entities with 3-dimensional information encoded on it, such as universes, are wont to do, they collided---and the imparting energy of which started the ever-expanding universe we see around us today.
3. Yeah, I've heard about it! Seen a couple amazing things, too!
Kinda creeps me out, to be honest, but in a good way
Chase Allen
Mar 10 2012: A quantum is simply the minimal physical entity involved in any interaction, right? So everything works on quanta, because a minimal physical entity (and usually more) is involved in every interaction.
- +1
Retinal cells (which are actually extensions of the brain and the only part of the brain you can see from the outside (the eye doctor when looking at your retina is looking at neural tissue emanating from your brain)) can detect and respond to a single quanta of light: a photon.
In my current line of thinking, quantum mechanics will not explain consciousness. The brain is too big, wet, hot for quantum phenomena to contribute to brain processes. I'm no expert here, but it makes sense to me.
And a point on agnosticism, agnostics don't just say we don't know, they say we can't know...
What I do think will explain consciousness is systems theories. The functional unit of the brain is the neuron. Neurons fire on an all or none principle (this is binary, either 0 or 1). But the language of the brain is in neuronal firing patterns, so the brain isn't binary, I'm not sure what it is in this respect.
The secret of consciousness (in my best guess opinion) lies in the brain system (the flow of information) being able to turn back on itself. The brain is able to monitor itself and the body that houses it in "real time."
Have you heard of Douglas Hofstader (sp?). He wrote a book titled "I Am a Strange Loop." Hofstader's idea of strange loops is interesting and I believe may have some implications to the phenomenon of consciousness.
Obviously I could be way off.
Bernd Fesel
Mar 11 2012: To Chase - then you know Gödel-Escher-Bach as well?
- +1
It is no accident that many physics turn to become philosophers - at least in Germany this was the case during my student years. The transformation of material to immaterial - from quantum or what ever to consciousness or to religion or to values - is and stays a mystery despite all research.
I think that Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle explained very well why we can never anser the question: By explaining you inevitably interact, watching is interacting - and so you change the object... so the immaterial watching is influencing the material watched: And viceversa.
Explaination at the point turns to a self-referentiell cycle - with the self being more than the individual. For me the nobel-prize winning "game theory" (Prof. Selten) offers some insights how these explanation-cycles work.Mar 9 2012: In addition to the quantum computing idea, I think I posted articles in a response somewhere else in this forum about quantum computing and quantum data. It was the sister posts to the original post here. But here's one of the links, that is kinda cool:
4. Yeah, maybe we are---but I'm kinda agnostic. "Don't know if we are, don't know if we aren't" etc. Just wanna see the proof and judge for myself. :) We get a lot of people who conjecture, and postulate, and even argue, but very little *real* proof.
5. See number 4, hehehe. But I love reading about whatever anybody finds!Mar 10 2012: @Chase: Well, to be perfectly honest, I try to soft-soap my agnosticism by saying "I don't know." Science and logic-minded folk find that more palatable than saying "NO ONE CAN KNOW", because that assertion almost makes it seem like they shouldn't be doing exactly the sort of things they are doing (when I feel they most definitely *should* be doing their thing). It seems to make them feel like they're spinning their wheels. And religion and God-fearing folk find it more palatable because saying "I don't know" still leaves them with the possibility that they/God knows. Which, as far as I know, *might* be true.
Just being polite, is all. :)
As for what a quantum is---yes, your definition is correct. But my point was that there is a quantum interaction going on with smell. If such interactions occur in a hot, wet, environment like the nose, why not the brain, even if it may be in a way we do not yet understand? And from what I've been able to gather (which is far from conclusive) the reason so few olfactory receptors in our noses are able to detect such a wide variety of smells is due to an effect known as "quantum tunneling."
When a molecuile binds to a receptor site, an electron is transferred from the molecule (feel free, at any point, to correct me if I am not accurately describing the process!) to the receptor, activating the receptor, and in addition, causing the molecule to vibrate in such a way that is specific to that molecule that---the subtle differences in vibration are detectable, which our brains pick up on. If our noses can do that---why wouldn't our brains be able to do other things with quantum states? Even better, take a look at this article:
This article is suggesting that DNA can act as "a spin filter" and can distinguish between two quantum states. Not entirely sure what all of that means, but it would seem that quantum interactions happen more often and in more ways, than we know.
Mar 11 2012: I'm not getting religious logan but it says in revelation? That even his image will condemn you,so for me it's a forgone conclusion that someone writes a bloody good bot or AI is achieved at some date somewhen.I know one can look at that sentence and say anything but it stood out as peculiar as it didn't fit.
I think most researchers say Qauntum aspects when they talk on neuron fuzziness which just means we're still on the journey to figuring the brain out.I don't think one should look at the brain as systems,subsystems because of those people born in the world with only 30% brain matter and yet they are fully functional people with no differences in anyway or was it 2%,i can't remember.Mar 10 2012: @Chase: All I'm saying is that there is plenty of "reasonable doubt" as far as the role of quantum mechanics in the functions of consciousness that we shouldn't rule anything out yet without further research.
And no! I haven't heard of Douglas Hofstadter or his book, but it sounds interesting! A quick Google/Wikipedia search reveals a man who believes self-referential systems are the primary causes of consciousness. Sweet! Sounds like a good idea.
A constantly self-referential system, combined with self-reinforcing neural networks (where each newly acquired memory affects memories already formed), combined with a nearly infinite array of contexts in which to operate in sounds sufficiently complex to describe all the many ways people act. I will definitely have to investigate further!
And yeah, you got a point about the strictly on or off state of neurons. Unfortunately, there's a threshold to meet; in biological systems, there must be a certain level of excitement that a neuron must receive before it fires. It's this extremely variable threshold that might account for the less-than-linear processes of the brain. Heard of astrocytes?
These cells are responsible for a lot of things, chief among them they help facilitate the firing of neurons, and one astrocyte could connect to many thousands or millions of neurons, either prohibiting or stimulating neuronal transmissions via certain chemical reactions in the brain. One more system that must be accounted for in some way.
OH! As for quantum interactions happening to macro-scale objects, well. . . Just you take a look at this.
Sure, they had to super-cool the material---but macro-scale quantum interactions are possible. Who's to say they don't have some other property that makes them viable at room temperature, like with DNA?
Mar 11 2012: Hey. Yep, definitely heard of astrocytes and other glia cells; I quite enjoy neuroscience! Scientists once thought that glia simply and only held the brains neurons in place. But we now know that glia assist with function as well as structure.
As for the quantum phenomena thing. Quantum phenomena only happen at specific scales of size and temp, right? Again, I'm not a theoretical physicist and I am not a biologist; I could certainly be wrong in my assumptions. But I'm sticking with it: the human body/brain is way too big and way too warm to have quantum phenomena significantly affecting brain/mind processes such as consciousness. Even a receptor protein in the brain is too big for quantum phenomena (I believe). And the brain is way too crowded and hot (lots of kinetic energy (motion)) going on. Quantum phenomena may exist for nanoseconds in isolated parts of the brain (maybe). But any spreading of wave function, tunneling, will collapse into the most probabilistic single state immediately. Brain processes typically happen at the millisecond or longer time scale (I believe).
I remain in my position: the human brain is too big, too hot, and too wet (molecules and elementary particles continually interacting with each other) to have quantum phenomena playing any significant role in brain function (of course, I could be wrong).
I believe research into self-referential systems is a better path towards understanding and replicating human consciousness.Mar 11 2012: Well, I'm not gonna try to convince you if you've already decided it can't happen. But that quantum phenomenon for smell receptors, while still hotly debated and contested, does have a pretty loyal following.
They're also discussing the role of quantum mechanics in photosynthesis. Another hot, wet environment.
Mar 11 2012: Hey! Yeah, I'm not saying it can't happen. I'm saying the probabilities are so small that, personally, I don't believe it is happening.
My reasoning again: Nothing is in isolation in the human body. Even a single electron interacting with a receptor is interacting with that receptor. Any quantum phenomena will instantly "evaporate" due to constant interactions. Even if the electron is moving just close enough to the receptor as to not classically interact with it, the electron (and any superpositioning) is constantly being bombarded by extra (and intra) cellular fluid that contains particles. Some as small as ions. I just don't see their being enough time for quantum phenomenon to play any role other than the deep role quantum phenomena play in all matter.
Consciousness is a product of the overall brain, right? It doesn't seem to come from any specific area ( I could be wrong here, but I believe this is the case). And the overall brain is a relatively large, wet, and hot object with no parts in the vacuum style isolation or near zero temperatures required for quantum phenomena to do their weird quantum thing.
As far as the smell receptor thing goes. I don't believe smell receptors are isolated enough either. There are air and bio structures constantly interacting with odorants and with the receptors of the olfactory tissues.
There's just too much going on in a relatively extremely chaotic environment for any non-classical phenomenon to emerge.
But again, I'm no expert. I just don't see it being possible. How do you propose this stuff works? Don't objects have to be in unimaginably cold, extremely small, and/or extremely solid states to perform quantum phenomena? How do the researchers in the articles you posted know that quantum phenomena is taking place? Isn't there proposed idea simply a hypothesis?Mar 12 2012: Well, they've done extensive testing, from what I can gather, but nothing definitively conclusive. They've come close, though. Check out the wikipedia article on it:
But if you're looking for more *solid* proof of quantum mechanics at work in hot, wet environments on the macro-scale, further research into photosynthesis has proven rather fruitful:
Of course, it won't satisfy you're wishing to be "certain". They had to cool the algae down by a lot in order to even be able to track the way the energy moved through the protein, which leaves their results ambiguous at best. But, I would hazard to say that, to even notice such an effect operating on a protein to begin with, there must be *something* in it that makes such a design practical.
The following article elaborates a bit better on which quantum principle is being employed; it's an application of "quantum computing" according to the article. Haven't actually explored more of this phenomenon (it's mid-semester for me, so I've been rather busy with studying) but, the idea that larger scale applications of certain aspects of quantum mechanics is not only *possible* but occurs naturally seems to be a semi-legit, if not just merely tolerated, one:
All in all, it seems like, IF something that has to do with the conversion of light into energy can use a quantum computing principle to find the most efficient route by making the light go *all* the routes until it finds the most efficient one, why couldn't something similar happen in the brain?
At the very least, it warrants further research; the self-referential loop theory of consciousness, while a worthwhile research pursuit in it's own right, is no more or less worthwhile than this appears to be right now.Mar 12 2012: As for which parts of the brain do what, according to this diagram, the frontal lobe is in control of consciousness:
Mar 12 2012: I believe consciousness is largely thought to be a distributed process rather than a localized one. But yeah, I think there is evidence to suggest that some processes of consciousness are disturbed when there is damage to the frontal lobe. I believe sense of self is disturbed in some ways. Anyway...
I think self-referential loop is more worthwhile because it doesn't have to prove that it exists. There are many questions about the very existence of quantum phenomenon in the body or on macro, warm scales in general.
We can already see that self-referential systems exist in the brain as the very act of thinking changes the way we think. We can think about something, realize and insight about it, and change the way we think. Thinking changed thinking, it referenced itself. We just need to put time and energy into tracing out the incredibly complex self-referential system that is the human brain (or at least that's how I see it).
And a bit more about the QM thing. Again, I think my brain (my brain referencing itself) is a classical object just like an apple. My brain is bigger and hotter than an apple. Do you think it is possible to have light quantumly interact with an apple. I know people are saying that MAYBE photosynthesis takes advantage of QM, but that's a big maybe. No one is able to demonstrate it, right? Or did I miss something in the articles you provided.
Sorry I'm talking in circles, but my point is, the brain is a classical object just like apples, my entire body (which my brain constantly interacts with instantly collapsing an superimposed spreading of wave functions). The classical object brain is the seat of consciousness. We need a classical approach to understanding consciousness.Mar 12 2012: There're a lot of people who think a lot of things. People get wrapped up in their own idea of the way things work to the point that there is no longer room for other paradigms.
Take for instance the proliferation of computer programming languages.
One computer programming language is Turing complete. But rather than just trying to improve that one language to implement whatever behavior or design the programmer wishes to implement, the programmer get's all hot and bothered with the language in general and decides to redesign a language from the ground up, custom-tailored to the way he thinks.
Now there are two Turing complete languages, and rather than trying to improve one language or the other to implement whatever behavior or design the programmer wishes to implement, the programmer get's all hot and bothered with the language in genral and decides to redesign a language that takes the elements from both languages he likes and adds additional functionality that better supports the design he wishes to implement.
Now there're three Turing complete languages, any one of which will do whatever it was you wanted to do to begin with.
What I'm getting at here is that just because QM doesn't necessarily jive with *your* paradigm of the brain, humanity, and the world in general, doesn't make it any more or less worthwhile. And if self-referential loops *truly* explained the concept of consciousness better, wouldn't we, I dunno, have conscious machines by now?
The whole programming thing's been around for the greater part of two centuries (if you count Ada Lovelaces' design being the first program), and recursion has been around since AT LEAST the invention of Lisp and Prolog in the 1950's-1960's. We've had 60 some-odd years to perfect the use of self-referential loops.
Just saying it might be time to consider other alternatives, no matter how zany they may appear. Test the bajeezus out of them, and if something shakes loose, all the better.Mar 12 2012: It's the "Hammer" problem. To someone with a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail. Your hammer is self-referential loops. And there's nothing wrong with that! When I got a problem that needs that particular hammer, I'd much rather go to a dude who specializes in the use of that particular tool. Assuming my problem can be solved by that tool.
The problem is that people and the universe are either so complex physiologically with so many different moving parts, or BOTH complex and vast, that, when you add even a small amount of fuzziness about what all of these things are to begin with, they begin to serve as Rorschach tests, and people eventually just see the things they want to see in them.
I could care less *either way*; if consciousness can be entirely explained and recreated using self-referential loops, awesome! Let's see the AI you've developed! That would make my millenium!
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. "What's wrong with your AI, Jim?" "Oh, it's not working." "Have you tried using a loop yet?" "Yeah, it doesn't seem to be working." "Well, you need a bigger loop." "Well, I've kinda maxed out my memory, computing cycles, and bus speed. I can't make it any bigger." "Ah, well, then, you need more of them."
We've given it a good half-a-century, and while there may be some good life yet left in it, let's branch out a bit, pursue other avenues. Maybe we might discover something that helps us understand loops better, if nothing else.Mar 13 2012: But I digress; we have focussed so heartily on whether or not QM is a viable candidate or not, we have altogether foregone the conclusion that self-referential loops do indeed give rise to conscious thought. Is that necessarily accurate? I asked Google, and here's what I found.
My first search brought me to this paper:
which introduced the concept of Dynamical Systems theory, a search of the term which brought me here:
which begins to outline what DST is and what it is used for, primarily the studies of systems that are "mechanical in nature" such as "Planetary orbits as well as the behaviour of electronic circuits. . . " (I hope you'll forgive the excessive use of direct quotes from the various articles; I would hate to commit plagiarism, and I am relatively unfamiliar with the subject matter at hand).
Of particular interest in that article is the "Related Fields" section, under the "Chaos Theory" heading, part of which reads "Chaos theory describes the behavior of certain dynamical systems – that is, systems whose state evolves with time – that may exhibit dynamics that are highly sensitive to initial conditions" a statement that, if ever I wanted to apply to the study of the mechanical nature of the mind I would be hard-pressed to find a better description of.
Getting rather curious, I clicked into the "Chaos Theory" tab, and I found, about half-way through, that my eyes kinda glazed over, because I hadn't yet found anything directly pertaining to the self-referential nature of consciousness. So I refined my search to "Chaos Theory as it pertains to self-referential loops" which yielded many things, including:
http://paradox-point.blogspot.com/Mar 13 2012: And another thing of rather great interest was this:
which was a great introduction to the history of Chaos Theory, and introduces the most basic concept that accurately reflects the field: The Butterfly Effect.
According to the article: "The butterfly effect states that the flapping of a butterfly's wings in Hong Kong can change the weather in New York. It means that a miniscule change in the initial conditions of a system, in this case the weather, is magnified greatly in the end conditions of that same system."
Intriguing! Imagine this: The sexual act has just occurred, and an egg has just been fertilized. The First Cell begins to divide, and so on and so forth, bringing with it all that that entails; increasing body size, identifiable organs, and, slowly, consciousness. If you imagine each division of cells as 1 iteration of the loop, then each subsequent loop is like a snap-shot of every dynamical system present within that life! Not just it's awareness, but everything that that awareness is hooked into: visual, aural, olfactory, sensory, and taste. And a small, minute change in that first cellular division (maybe the egg being just a smidge higher or lower in the uterus) could drastically affect every subsequent iteration of the system!
So what, then, does this mean for our self-referential loop model? It means that we are all just---chaos. That there is an order by which we *unfold* but that order is, by definition, a series of chaotic events. "Chaos works in order and within all order there is chaos." By this definition, market trends would be nigh impossible to predict! And yet, you can kinda guess that, if the cost of corn goes down, people will probably reduce supply in order to drive it back up. Just human nature. An order in the chaos that creates us.
The problem, however, is scale. You may have a pattern, but you never know to what degree it will manifest itself with any given man.Mar 13 2012: So what you're "really" saying when you say "Consciousness is a self-referential system" you're saying "Boy, it's a cluster of unimaginable proportions!" and rather not as simple, straight-forward, or fruitful as you made it sound! How would you isolate every possible starting condition that might give rise to a human being and ever hope to accurately replicate it, even with an iterative approach?
What if, through some research, we discover a system of equations that we think describes how consciousness works and it produces a Lorenz-Attractor-like plot? Sure it's iterative, but it never repeats. There would be no regularity, and would give rise to none of the predictability we've come to expect from our fellow human beings.
Unless---Unless there were some function, some mechanism, within our consciousness that, maybe, allows us to run through *every* possible thought and allows us to pick and choose which ones are relevant to us? Kinda like that QM thing?
Unless I missed something in all these other articles, chaotic systems are unimaginably complex. I happened upon an article that talks of a guy named Poincare. I happen to know that one of the Seven Millenium Problems pertains to something called the Poincare Conjecture, and a dude named Grigori Perlman who built upon the research of a guy named Richard Hamilton and his work on using Ricci flow to attack the problem. It took a century, but they did it.
I may be overly simplistic, but whereas QM may be unproven, at least a little bit more research could rule it out today, whereas this stuff--? If it takes as long to solve this as it did the Poincare Conjecture, we're looking at another 40-50 years easy. And let us not forget that the nature of thought and consciousness has occupied people since the VERY beginning, mathematicians and philosophers alike.
Isaac Newton, who helped lay the foundation from which DST sprang, said, "I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people. "Mar 13 2012: As is the case with all things, perhaps the truth lies somewhere between?
If you think about our brains, not only are there loops (as you suggest) and instances of advanced parallel processing (like sorting through multiple paths and trying to settle on the most efficient one) our brains are also immense data-bases of atomic facts.
The *sky* is *up*.
*Grass* is *green*.
Don't *eat* the *yellow* *snow*.
Perhaps multiple loops running in parallel sort through this database of facts or *rules* if you will.
Perhaps the decision trees that connect these facts are themselves contained in a data base, and the most efficient one gets decided upon using some QM-style phenomenon, and certain things that don't lend themselves well to recursion but where the required outputs are known could be executed via certain supervised learning methods (like with backpropogation techniques, although, continual neuron weight updates might be a certain kind of loop) and other things that do lend themselves to looping and/or the datasets are *not* known (and as such, an incremental breakdown would be necessary IF there was no rule in the database that could be modified to match the novel input).
A combination of all these techniques would be necessary in creating a *strong* AI because, certainly, there are certain phenomenon that lend themselves better to each of these approaches than others.
All of this means we'd have to optimize our search of the rule database itself, yes? And we could do that using---another rule. A rule about rules. One rule to rule the rules. The Golden Rule. Or just categorize the rules into sub-sets of which every rule must belong.Mar 14 2012: Hey, after all that stuff, I happened to be randomly reading something on facebook and, not knowing how to work it cleverly into the conversation, just decided to blurt it out because it's tangentially related to AI.
It's about the rise of algorithms within trading and advertising businesses and how they seem to be taking on aspects of a predator/prey relationship. It's kinda neat.
And this:
And this:
and possibly more, because I'm bored, and I don't wanna do homework on Spring Break. These all seem to be technologies geared towards "bridging the gap" using the analytical power of one and the parallel computing power of the other to create a sort of hybrid intelligence. And shore up biological deficiencies or injuries. Which is a viable possibility towards creating machine intelligence, if you think about it. Sufficent amounts of lab-born neural networks--?
Oh yeah, and that whole thing about computer programming languages made me think about other computer programming languages---I read a while back about some programming languages whose creators had a rather vicious sense of humor. Take a look at some of 'em:
I think I actually might want to use the one that you have to use lolspeak in. . . Or the one that you sometimes have to ask "please" before it will run.Mar 8 2012: If computers can win jeopardy I reckon they're more than ready to replace our political decision makers
Mar 8 2012: A politician needs to be able to make an independent decision. At this point in time, no computer can do that.
Mar 8 2012: I for one welcome our cyber overlords - but seriously folks 99% of a politiciens decisions are based on getting people to like him - which is not obviously the best criteria for the country as a whole. I understand that an AI that acts with as much passion and stupidity as a human isnt yet on the market - but a computer program that can make economic decisions based on data might just be possible.
Mar 8 2012: I will never support AI overlords as long as they don't have a sense of consequence. Politicians doesn't SEEM to have that trait, but an AI would not have it, at all.Mar 8 2012: What we call Artificial Intelligence differs from human intelligence in one tremendous aspect: it completely and totally lacks anything to do with consciousness, qualia, sense of self, intuition or any kind of subjective experience. AI offers nothing but a slight semblance of awareness and reasoning. It is nothing but an elaborate and extensive layout of logic gates, with all sense and logic nothing but complicated patterns of binary data.
If human intelligence could be rendered anything similar, it wouldn't require any sentience at all. Even machine learning is nothing but trial and error, with any and all success strictly confined to cold algorithms. The inorganic technology of today can only hope to mimic life, to give the appearance of behaving in a manner similar to organisms. I have a feeling we'll move almost entirely on to organic technology, and modifying the mysterious of life as they've come to exist, long before succeeding in creating a lifeless program on par with the mind of a human being.
Howard Yee
Mar 8 2012: Are you saying consciousness, qualia, sense of self, etc are systems that have no baser components? As humans, don't we want definitive proof if that's the case? And if not, the baser components should be simpler, easier to grasp, and explainable. From that point, we should be able to create artificial systems that mimic it.
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It seems like you're focusing on weak AI strategies (machine learning, fixed algorithms that do specific tasks, etc). We can use computers to simulate neurons, and from a blackbox perspective, they're no different than an organic neuron. Right now, even by observing neurons in a human brain, we are unable to make the leap between a system so definitive, and the complex system known as human consciousness. I think that once we can understand that, we will be able to successfully mimic it.
Mar 8 2012: I'm sure everything has lesser components, or so we could reason. But do the components of consciousness resemble the lesser components of machines, blind currents interacting in algorithmic ways? I feel we're incredibly limited in assessing this scientifically, as the only consciousness we've come to know is our own. Subjective experience isn't something we observe in a microscope. And this has an impact on the way we view the world around us, the way we reason things to exist. Consciousness itself is a tremendous mystery, not just the senses and reasoning it involves but the actually nature of experiencing and being. That experience, qualia, isn't something we can replicate with programs or machinery. More than likely before we even care to try, we'll be crafting organisms into machines, likely without regard or awareness to their own qualia.
Even a simulated neuron, with today's technology at the very least, breaks down to bits and registers, pushing and popping. Our attempts to simulate all behaviors we observe in nature share a common limitation - they're absolutely agentless. And I think this stems from our limitations in assessing the world around us, because such agents aren't something to be observed. And it leads to a flaw in our reasoning: the mystery of consciousness is no longer a question of its role in the universe, instead we want to understand how such a phenomenon could arise from dead matter. The world as we see it is dead, but only because we lack the ability to observe it's inner being. We want definitive proof of things, but this itself is a limitation to it's own end.
scott lee
Mar 8 2012: I agree with you about the mysterious nature of consciousness. One of the great things about the quest for AI is the fact its forcing people to confront this mystery again. If we do create AI, no more can people just say "oh, its just chemical reactions in the brain".
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Subjective experience is innately mysterious because science is rooted in objectivity (or at least the scientific method attempts to be). We can't even prove the existence of our own subjective experience, so how are we going to be able to tell whether a computer can experience it.
If you program a a network of simulated neurons to dream, does it experience the dream? Will it be afraid after a nightmare, or inspired by some strange subjective metaphor that came while it was "unconscious". That's pretty hard to prove considering I can't even prove that I experience a dream.
Although, that doesn't mean that computers can't be conscious. For all we know, many things are conscious. Consciousness could be as ubiquitous as gravity, or some strange property of electricity. I can't prove my kitchen table doesn't undergo subjective experience any better than I can prove I do.
As much as I am a firm believer in my own consciousness, I wouldn't hold it as a criteria for AI, for reasons above. It is just to elusive and unmeasurable.
At some point, though we will have to confront these kind of questions. Do computers feel pain? Do they have rights? Its very similar to debates around animals, but now we have to either expand or confine our ideas about consciousness in regards to a very different type of entity.
Howard Yee
Mar 9 2012: I ask again, what is qualia? How do we classify qualia? Just because we give a label to our experiences as "qualia" doesn't mean that's the rawest essence of the experience. These experiences differ from person to person; synesthesia is one obvious example of how they differ. Do people who experience synesthesia have a condition that isn't normal? That means there's a way to attribute qualia to something systematic.
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Also, I agree with scott when he asks whether a table can be conscious. We know that consciousness is present in a system of neurons. Neurons themselves are not conscious. Are you saying this agent that controls or affects neurons is conscious or contains some attribute that creates consciousness? What's to stop us from finding the origins of these agents?
BJ Hanssen
Mar 8 2012: With the word "replace" in the question my answer will be a no. My reasoning is fairly simple - a human is the sum of its genes, its experience and the lives of those who came before it. There is something intangible about that last bit - our decisions are based not only on our own genes and experience, but also on interpreted history. And the key word there is "interpreted"; you can feed all the history of the world into an AI and make that enter into its decision making process, but it will never be able to emulate the "interpretation factor".
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So no, I don't think technology can replace human intelligence. But in a narrow scope, it CAN surpass it - by a lot. The first thing we need to do, though, is make a computer that calculates outside of right and wrong, or outside the binary domain. For an AI to be successful it needs to recognize that there is such a thing as more right, more wrong and neither right nor wrong. I think this is more of a challenge than people realize.
Mar 8 2012: It seems like you are interpreting (pun intended) that AI systems are only discrete entities with a very algorithmic core. The problem of the strength of AI is more substantial than that. Currently in the field of neuroscience, we are unable to make the connection between the microscopic systems (neurons) whose inputs and outputs for very well defined, and the macroscopic system (our consciousness). Right now, we can emulate neurons very well; proponents of strong AI believe that with enough emulated neurons we can replicate consciousness. They question at hand goes beyond whether we can artificially create consciousness, it's a question of "what is consciousness?" because we are unable to tease it out of the known systems (the human brain)
Mar 8 2012: The real question is whether or not we will believe it is in fact consciousness once we have created it.
There's no reply to your reply, so I am dropping this above the line.
I never said human. I said consciousness. My use of the word believe stems from the fact that we cannot know.
Mar 8 2012: The real question, which Oliver Milne has been pushing countless times in this conversation, is whether or not we KNOW it's in fact conscious. Machines can be made to pass a Turing test without having any real intelligence, and if we "believe" it's a human, then we are lying to ourselves. Part of being able to create a conscious system is to definitely show that it is conscious. If we are unable to show without a doubt that it is conscious then we have fallen for hokum.Mar 8 2012: Then that begs the question: how do we test for consciousness? Ignoring for a moment the immense difficulty in creating consciousness, let's devise a test for consciousness on the only entities we suspect of having consciousness now---humans.
And if we can't even show that we're conscious, does that imply we've already fallen for hokum?Mar 9 2012: @Logan. There's something known as the "three aspects of consciousness". There's also the concept of "theory of mind". Scientists have devised well accepted tests to test for those aspects in humans and animals. The mirror test, tests for one aspect: the ability to recognize oneself. There's also the ability to sympathize with others by being able to recognize external events as if it is oneself's, and finally there's the ability to take previous experiences and apply them through deduction to future events. Many animals have facets of the three, but not all three.
Using these tests, we've been able to find out that babies develop these abilities in steps and do not fully gain all three until months after birth.
And as evidence that these facets of consciousness are tied to real-world systems, watch this video about mirror neurons: http://www.ted.com/talks/vs_ramachandran_the_neurons_that_shaped_civilization.html. It would seem like we have evolved with systems in place to aid the sympathetic aspect.
So it would seem like we have tests for consciousness. If anything, we should scrutinize the three aspects and theory of mind to see whether they truly encapsulate what it means to be conscious.Mar 9 2012: Those tests are a starting point, but I don't think they address the 'hard problem' of consciousness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness) which is the part that really matters. It's possible, and a little disturbing, to imagine a sort of android that acts exactly like a person, including in those behavioural tests, but which doesn't have consciousness. If we didn't look inside its head (I mean that literally), we could never tell whether or not it was a person. You suggested elsewhere that perhaps nothing unconscious could manifest all the signs of conscious. That'd be a fantastic discovery if it were ever confirmed, but, on the face of it, it seems like something that would be almost impossible to find out without first knowing what consciousness is.Mar 8 2012: That is actually not my interpretation :)
I have no doubt whatsoever that we will one day spawn a conscious AI whose thinking pattern mimics that of a human, nor do I doubt that such an AI will one day be vastly more intelligent than any human. As I said, technology CAN surpass us - but only in a narrow scope. Something *will* be lost in the translation between the biological and the technological. I sincerely doubt we will be able to infuse an AI with the "human condition".
You may argue that I'm wrong because if we can create a technological system perfectly analogous to the way the human mind operates, the "human condition" may come forth naturally. Then I counter with this - if we are able to do that, what we will have is the technological equivalent of a caveman with a library full of history books. Yes, the caveman may be incredibly intelligent and he may have access to all of our history, but the interpretation factor cannot be replicated artificially.
Mar 9 2012: Maybe not your human condition. But that caveman-robot might equally despair at the impossibility of creating a human capable of understanding the caveman-robot condition :PMar 7 2012: You simply have to ask why are we creating machines? seriously why?
if your only answer is to replace humans then the answer is YES, we will find a way to make a machine do everything a human can do and more...
However, I really do not see that as the goal of making machines. We build machines to help humans, to support humans, etc. Even if machines become self aware ( they will it's only a matter of time) I do not see a war against them. I see a future were machines and humans will be congruent, seamlessly woven into a new matrix.
This said, if we continue on our current path this little rock in space will be uninhabitable by humans so our only hope of immortality will be the machines we create to continue on...Mar 7 2012: The human brain is a machine, and is ONLY a machine. Any discussion that is not based on this simple fact is seated in fantasy. Many people seem to think that it is the ultimate machine, but it absolutely is not. One estimate I've seen puts human computing power at a mere ~.1 petaflops, whereas many of the TOP500 supercomputers far exceed this performance already. Human-like AI is just a matter of reverse engineering. We will figure it out. It will be done very soon. It seems to me like an easier task to build an imperfect replication of our intelligence, than building something to augment human intelligence. Therefore I would expect to see AI that exceeds our intelligence before technology that augments human abilities.
Even if we lived in a magical universe where the ~maximum~ amount of "intelligence per volume" was realized in the human brain, once AI arrives on the scene there would be many things to do to make AI vastly superior to human intelligence. I am thinking of tricks such as scaling (making the brain bigger), and reconfiguring the topology of the neural network such as is seen in the fmri scans of savants and individuals with autism. Fortunately, the reality that we live in is one where the human brain provides sufficient intelligence for our individual survival. The theoretical maximum intelligence density is many, many orders of magnitude higher than that seen in our brains.
The public opinion is that AI will only asymptotically approach the abilities of humans. This is an untrue, egocentric world view. Damon Horowitz maybe should entitle his talk "Why MAN-MADE Machines CURRENTLY need People". Remember that we are machines too. Human-like AI is a matter of current research.
You ask "what if.. would it be able to think?" I would say there is no reason to think otherwise. In fact, imagine what something many orders of magnitude smarter than you COULD think!? Fleeting thoughts would be equivalent to centuries of modern scientific discovery.Mar 7 2012: I suppose you have to consider that as biological organisms we have had over 200 million years to evolve and develop our neural pathways and intelligence. Our knowledge is always expanding and if at the moment it may seem that AI's cannot processes certain things, it may be the case that in 5-10 years they can.
But in terms of emotion and feelings: again, our knowledge currently may not be able to allow us to program emotions into AIs. However, it would be very complex nevertheless, as emotions are governed upon your personality variables and inherit parameters. I.e. Complements: Do you like yourself to be thought well of; if yes, then would any statement about yourself in a positive image support this? If yes: Then based upon this decision structure, it would induce a positive feedback within the neural net.
The efficiency of the systems would be superior to that of organic life, this is because we have organs based upon our evolution within the environment, where our foods is required to be processed and useful parts be used to provide energy to our components. With a mechanical life form, such an array of systems would not be required, because a single power source would suffice, with no need of a disposal systems to deposit the 'lost energy'.
But coming back to consciousness, if a self-adaptive program was used for the AI to develop based upon its surroundings and demands then it would be the same as a newly born child, whose neural pathways develop depending on their environment too. In addition, the AI would not necessarily require a division of two parts of it's neural net (I.e. Conscious/Sub-conscious), and would therefore be able to recall information in real time and perform complex calculations.
In conclusion, I think it really depends on how the AI is programmed and its architecture. Can it simply match patterns at a superior rate, or does it have the processing capacity to interpret these and to understand them as well?
Ernie Schell
Mar 7 2012: Whether AI will be "strong" enough in the next 50 years to equal human intelligence may be the wrong question. Martin Ford argues in The Lights In The Tunnel that it will probably be strong enough to automate most jobs, especially those of Knowledge Workers (and of course blue collar workers, who are already being displaced). Taking an objective view (and a deep breath), I think he is probably right. He has a prescription for how to manage an economy of mostly leisure time, but the point is, AI doesn't have to be smart enough to be your friend, or a good dinner guest, to be a completely disruptive technology. It just has to be as good or better at doing a specific/documentable range of tasks. And I think it will be there by 2050.
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Lewis Smart
Mar 7 2012: Intelligence, maybe. Can technology replace human creativity? That seems a bit more complicated.
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Vlad Zeman
Mar 7 2012: I say ask the being if it thinks it is alive or if it is a machine. If it thinks it is alive then who are we to say otherwise?
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Oliver Milne
Mar 7 2012: It can only think it's alive if it can think. But something doesn't have to be able to think to pass a Turing test. The danger of your approach is that we might make unconscious machines that wrongly insist that they can think.
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Consciousness is something that really happens. There is a fact of the matter of whether something is conscious or not. And if we're going to make machines that do impressions of being conscious, we really, really need to know what that fact of the matter involves.
Mar 7 2012: I'm not sure if we can ever satisfacorily answer this question. Is consciousness really either a yes or no question, or is there a grey area of being partially conscious. I'm also thinking of the evolution of humans from less conscious ancestors.
Mar 7 2012: I agree with you, but we have to try. And imagine how fantastic it would be if we succeeded - we'd finally have an answer to one of the biggest questions there is.Mar 14 2012: Yeah ... for sure !
What is technology ?
Technology ids the studies of performing a particular task in various techniques ... so the word is derived Tech-nology !
So it has to be related with the Actions of Human with respect to various techniques !Mar 13 2012: Logan, hey! I am enjoying our conversation here; I hope you are as well. Here's what I'm thinking at this point: I must clarify that I don't think self-referential loops are the only answer to explaining consciousness. I simply think they are a better route than QM (but again, I'm no expert, just a thinker). I think computer science is a good route to go towards explaining consciousness as well. Have you talked to anyone who knows how to program a chat bot? Have you ever talked to one? Try it out here: http://www.personalityforge.com/dynachat.php?BotID=24007&MID=23957. I tried asking the bot questions/giving directives such as "Are you conscious?" "Do you have feelings?" "Pick a number." "What is your favorite food?" I think the bot, or rather the bot's programmer (or is it the bot itself), is rather clever... The point of the bot is, is it conscious? Have human intelligence and human consciousness been achieved through technology? Could this tech replace human consciousness?
I don't know... what's your take on this? And just think, the website I provided is pretty simple; that is to say, it's not a research university and it's not the government. Think what DARPA must have!
What's your take? Is the bot a representation of human intelligence being replaced by technology?
Mar 14 2012: And yeah! I've taken a look-see at one! If you're looking for some *extreme* examples of bots, man, check this out:
That guy's hooked into at least one server, maybe more, and is running checks against every single thing ever said to it! I asked if it was lonely once---and the system crashed. I think it was right around maintenance time though. The point is---I think it's got a spark. Kinda like when you take the blunt side of a knife to a flint---one spark flung off it. Humans have lotsa sparks flying every which way. Consciousness surely isn't a "yes/no" decision; it's a very tricky grade.
And when we achieve it, I think people will *still* say something about it. But they'll turn to disagreeing with it on *qualitative* grounds rather than *quantitative* grounds. "Sure it's accurately calculated, derived, and applied reasoning at the human level---but is it the sort of decision a flesh-and-blood human would've made?"
Which is going to be the point where you just have nay-sayers and proponents, like in any issue. It'll reach a boiling-point---and then people will just have to deal with the fact they may never know.
As for QM vs. Self-referential loops (and other possible AI sources) we could keep going back and forth on it, and truth be told, I'm as big a fan of the "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" kinda debates as anyone, but until it's won-and-done, it's just two old ladies sitting in a darkened room complaining that nobody's changed the lightbulb, instead of actually *doing* something that changes things one way or another, like testing for it. I mean that politely. :) Self-referential loops will always be there; let them take a bit of a break, experiment with something new, and then they can go back to it if it doesn't pan out.
And I'm willing to keep debating it! Let's just be honest and up-front about the possibility of it leading anywhere.
Mar 14 2012: Logan,
Hey! Thanks for directing me to that bot. As I said before, I don't think self-referential loops are the exclusive way to think about the brain, I think they are just a good starting point and direction. I also think bots have a lot to say about consciousness. I think I might try programming a bot on my own to see with what I can come up! I believe bots can be programmed to be indistinguishable from human/human chat interactions.
You said that consciousness isn't a yes/no decision, that it is graded. I agree with you. But isn't interesting that we do say this person/thing is conscious while this person/thing is not. Seems like we are able to talk about consciousness in a yes/no fashion, at least to some degree.
And I think we are moving in to an era where we need to stop thinking about consciousness in terms of only belonging to flesh and blood beings. Just because flesh and blood was the first place we noticed consciousness, doesn't mean it's the best or only.
Regarding my distrust of QM playing a primary role in consciousness. You're right, you and I could sit here interminably and debate what it is that is going really going on. At this point I'm saying, by all means, investigate, investigate, investigate! Theoretically it doesn't seem possible, but that is for the experiments/studies to decide. So what do they say? Has anyone even come close to observing QM phenomena in the brain? I know you provided those articles, but weren't they pretty much asking "what if" without providing any evidence or answers?
What do you do? Are you student? Do you have access to research resources? I would love to look at stuff like this experimentally.
But again, I stay with my theorizing. There is too much going on in the brain for weird QM phenomena to be happening... any QM effects will be instantly (on a much faster time scale than consciousness occurs) collapsed into classical effects...Mar 13 2012: Perhaps, the day computers get emotional AND rational imho. Aren't emotions part of what we call "intelligence"? Many of our decisions are based on emotions, if not the majority of them.
That said, more rational, or low AI computers without emotional IQ/AI could lead to a HAL computer-like deciding to nuke half of the world population because it would preserve the Earth, which cannot cope with the current demographics and consumption rhythm.
I totally agree with the assertion that the study of the human brain will help create intelligent computers, we're just in Day 1 of understanding it, what happens next will be interesting for sure :)


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The Chinese were the first to create tofu; it just took the rest of us about 1,500 years to catch up. Tofu made its way to Europe and America in the 18th and 19th centuries, but it wasn't until 1958 that tofu hit the grocery store shelves in America. Even then, it took a while to catch on. Is tofu really good for you?
Yes, as many are aware, tofu is rich in high quality protein. But what you may not know is that it's also a good source of B-vitamins and iron. It is low in saturated fat and contains no cholesterol. Tofu is also very low in sodium, making it a perfect food for people on sodium-restricted diets, and — because of the addition of a coagulation agent in the production process — contains a certain amount of calcium. Types of Tofu
There are three main types of tofu that can be found in grocery stores in the United States. Firm tofu is dense and solid, and cooks well in stir-fry dishes, soups or on the grill. Firm tofu keeps its shape. It is higher in protein, fat and calcium than the other forms of tofu. Soft tofu is a good choice for recipes that call for blended tofu. It is also good in Oriental soups. Silken tofu is made by a slightly different process and gives a creamy, custard-like consistency. This works well in pureed or blended dishes. There are literally thousands of recipes that contain tofu. This one is sure to be one of your favorites!
SESAME CRUSTED TOFU SALAD by Executive Chef Guy P. Pellegrini 8 ounces firm tofu 1/4 cup ginger, julienned 1/4 cup carrot, julienned 1/3 cup cilantro, chopped 4 cups baby mixed greens 4 Tablespoons sesame seeds, dry roasted 1/4 cup light soy sauce 2 Tablespoons sesame oil 4 Tablespoons olive oil 1 Tablespoon molasses or brown sugar Combine soy sauce, 2 Tablespoons olive oil, sesame oil, and molasses in a bowl. Place the firm tofu on a serving plate, draining the excess water. Pat dry. Cut into four pieces. Lightly coat the tofu with sesame seeds, and then sear in 2 Tablespoons of olive oil until lightly toasted. Mix ginger, carrot, cilantro and mixed greens, and toss with soy sauce dressing. Divide equally onto the center of each plate. Place equal portions of seared tofu on top of each mixed salad. Sprinkle with sesame seeds. Serves 4. CALORIES PER SERVING: 160FAT: 14G TRANS FAT: 0 CARBS: 6G PROTEIN: 9G


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Killroy's blog
its like it was mocking me... she had to tell me not to hit it up, but they were every where, on both sides, flashing by, 90 on the dash, just wanted to meet one face to face, a brief encounter that would last the rest of my life.... fuck me for not haveing the guts to do it
And when its all said and done, and the blood has dried, and the air has all been burned away, i'll be the only one left, for i've been choking on my own ashes for years and no more do i need this world.
i've receved a msg or two about the negativity in my blog. to it i say yeah i get that you dont want to read depresing shit all the time but i really don't care that much. i only write well when im depressed. i post on here when i write well. if the negativity is to much or just bothersome feel free not to read it.
for some reason the coments on my blog are only comeing to my email for the most part. i apoligise to any one who thinks im not alowing them to be posted, i really don't know the reason
and when people are left in the confidence of those that love them they show their darkest edges.. the evil within becomes all consuming, feeding on the trust placed upon them and they give in. all want, all desire, they take it all, walk strait to the fire.
go ahead bight me, do what you do. sink your teeth deep cause i don't care about you. put another line in my face, and one in your vain, when we bring our world down around us it'll be me that is sain!
i swear its all a game of who can hurt me when, in the end when the cards run out, when the dice no longer role, will there be a player left? or will i of worn away like the faces on the cards?
im having trouble with suicidal thoughts again.. as i'm driving at night, the telephone poles flash past and each one looks more apeeling than the last. all i wanna do is hit one as fast as my truck will let me. some times i tern out my lights so i can't see them, so they cant call to me but i eventually have to tern them back on because i know if i wreck my parents can't afford the cost of the...
some nights are worse, some i manege to numb up and forget the way you ripped my heart out, left my soul bleeding.. i took a chance and trusted again and you taught me that i can't ever let my gard down again. i'll nvr trust another girl and i'll have to settle for a love that is broken because im incapable of letting my self really give in, give me, not that there is much left of me. these...
i'll nvr understand why some people get to be perfect, likable, and atractive... i'm stuck with what i've been given and i've tried really hard to make it something worth wanting.. but no one wants me, no one wants this thing which my soul inhabits.. i won't live long and maybe that's for the better.


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Collection of KoRn Covers
Hi! I think this topic will be interesting. Actually i like covers if sounds good, and give back the original music lyrics and feeling.
Let's start with this band, named ZUP. They usually making covers from all around the world.
Just got this Korn cover: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JF7je7SZ2w&feature=related
Replies to This Posting
Re: Collection of KoRn Covers
while i admire the flexibility inherent to the form art that is music... all i could think watching this performance was: WHY?


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The following is an archive of a post made to our
'vox mailing list'
by one of its subscribers.
Peter Jay Salzman wrote:
>opera 5 final came out.
>some cool features:
> you can now use your mouse buttons to perform "back" and "forward"
> operations (holding the right button down, clicking the left performs
> back. holding left, clicking right performs forward.
> you can do searches on your bookmarks. so you can search all your
> bookmarks for the word "cookie" or something. does regex searching
> download resume feature
> plugins now work. some netscape plugins now work.
Does it have an email program like the Windows version?
Robert G. Scofield
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About the Readers' Choice Awards
The About.com Readers' Choice Awards are designed to showcase the best websites, apps and tools for genealogists. Nominate your favorite free genealogy website here. You can also visit the About.com Genealogy Readers' Choice Awards page to nominate the best genealogy sites and tools in a variety of other categories.
Nominations & Voting
Nominations are accepted until midnight (EST) on February 17, 2013. Voting will open February 19, 2013. Winners in each category will be announced March 27, 2013. Thank you very much for your participation!


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Top Searches:
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July 22, 2013
Links: Australian Glass and the Pacific Northwest at Museum of Glass
Wsu Master Gardeners of Pierce County at Master Gardener of Pierce County
The Shape of Things by Neil Labute at Dukesbay Theater
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"Pirate Radio" is the high-spirited story of how eight DJs' love affair with rock 'n' roll changed the world forever. In the 1960s, this group of rogue DJs, on a boat in the middle of the Northern Atlantic, played rock records and broke the law all for the love of music. The songs they played united and defined an entire generation and drove the British government crazy. By playing rock 'n' roll they were standing up against the British government who did everything in their power to shut them down. The band of rebels is lead by The Count, Quentin the boss of Radio Rock, Gavin the greatest DJ in Britain, Midnight Mark, Doctor Dave and Young Carl who comes of age amidst the chaos of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll.
Rated R for language, and some sexual content including brief nudity.
Visit the official site
Cast: Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans, Nick Frost, Philip Seymour Hoffman, January Jones
Produced by: Hilary Bevan Jones
Directed by: Richard Curtis
Written by: Richard Curtis
Running time: 2hr 9min
Opens: Nov 13, 2009 Nationwide


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Matt Skole 16 3B
Harrisburg Senators
- Double-A | Eastern League
- MLB Parent Club: Washington Nationals
- Status: Active
- Full Name: Matthew Thomas Skole
- Age: 25 (July 30, 1989)
- Birthplace: Woodstock, GA
- Bats/Throws: L/R Ht: 6' 4" Wt: 225
- Draft: Round 5 (2011, WSH)
- School: Georgia Tech
Matt Skole Stats Summary
Matt Skole Career Stats
Matt Skole News
- Prospect Roundup: Games of May 19
- Ross paints pretty picture for Senators
- EL notes: Phils' Quinn starts off quickly
- Curve's Glasnow solid in Double-A debut
- Difo, Souza, Giolito step up for Nationals
- Senators' Skole homers, continues climb
- 2013 Doubledays Named to Nationals Top Prospect List by Baseball America
- Skole in session, homers in return
Matt Skole Video
Watch more Matt Skole videos »
MiLB.com Photos
View MiLB.com photos »
Matt Skole Awards and Honors
Matt Skole 16 3B
- Full Name: Matthew Thomas Skole
- Born: July 30, 1989
- Age: 25
- Birthplace: Woodstock, GA
- Bats: L
- Throws: R
- Height: 6' 4"
- Weight: 225
- Draft: Round 5 (2011, WSH)
- School: Georgia Tech
Ranked No. 11 among Nationals prospects by MLB.com entering the 2013 season. ... Was named the Nationals' 2012 Minor League Player of the Year. ... Led the South Atlantic League in homers, on-base percentage, slugging percentage and walks in 2012 while ranking second in RBIs. ... Selected by the Washington Nationals in the fifth round of the 2011 First-Year Player Draft out of Georgia Tech. ... Hit 47 homers in three college seasons. ... Was a first team All-Atlantic Coast Conference selection in 2010 and a first-team Freshman All-American in 2009. ... In 2010, he became the 12th player in school history to hit 20 homers in a season. ... Was a three-year letter-winner at Blessed Trinity Catholic High School in Roswell, Ga., where he was team captain as a senior and won a AAA state championship in 2006. ... Is the school record-holder for single-season and career homers and RBIs. ... Named 2008 Hitter of the Year by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. ... Also was named 2008 Fulton County Player of the Year. ... His father played baseball at Georgia Southern University and his grandfather, Tom T. Skole, played in the St. Louis Browns organization. His uncle, Tony Skole, played football and baseball at The Citadel in 1980. Another uncle, Scott Skole, played football at Troy State in 1978.


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Granny Clampett looking down her nose
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Best Idea Ever–Female Frontline Soldiers
Posted by KingShamus on December 3, 2012
Jeff over at Protein Wisdom gives us the scoop on the latest doings on the female empowerment front.
This is actually quite interesting: "The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), representing four military women and the activist Servicewomen's Action Network (SWAN), has filed a San Francisco lawsuit demanding that female soldiers be forced into direct ground combat (infantry) battalions."
The lawsuit is being filed because female soldiers have been proven to be just as good ad their male counterparts.
This despite "numerous studies and tests conducted over the past 30 years, in the direct ground combat environment" showing "women do not have an equal opportunity to survive, or to help fellow soldiers survive."
It must be sexist or racist or sexist-racist (sexiracist?) to keep women off the front lines, so let the litigation commence.
BTW: I'm with Jeff. If a woman can physically and mentally perform to the same degree as a man, she should be eligible to serve in any Obamafied kinetic military actions.
But that's not what this lawsuit is about.
It's about making women 'equal' to men, no matter how badly we have to torture biology and physics and math to make it happen.
Whatever. I for one have had it trying to protect thumbsucking anti-American leftoids from the consequences of their moronic policy proposals. Every day, members of the reality-based community furiously beat their spoons on their high chairs demanding the rest of us give in to every one of their thoughtless childish whims.
So fuck it. Give the ACLU everything that it wants in this case. Marxists think women in combat is like the bestest idea ever? Cool. We should make Gloria Allred an eleventy-star general just to celebrate this marvelous achievement-free achievement.
As a matter of fact, if you look at the history of America, women have gotten off pretty easy when it comes to fighting in combat. Since the Revolutionary War, the overwhelming number of soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen have been men. The US government has been guilty of creating a disparate impact on our male citizens-soldiers. This sort of blatant sexist discrimination against almost half of our population cannot and will not stand.
Currently, the US Army is 13% female and 87% male. Those numbers need to change. If we're serious about righting the long-standing historic wrong our government has perpetrated against men, we must not only must allow women serve in combat. We have to go further, and make the Army an 87% female force.
Call me a radical feminist, but America will never be an equal society when women don't have to shoulder the burden of defending our country. That means our Army must stop taking in male recruits, while at the same time creating a massive new program to recruit and retain female Army candidates. It's the only way we can right one of the great civil rights failures in America's history.
I mean, why not let a Katy Perry video help determine our nation's military policy?
Update: Linked by Theo Spark! Thanks for the shout-out.
Update II: Linked by Edge Of The Sandbox. Check out her post for the sexxxiest picture of Moochelle Obama ever.
9 Responses to "Best Idea Ever–Female Frontline Soldiers"
December 3, 2012 at 1:10 pm
I thought the Katy Perry video was all about enjoying her breasts?
From my brother talking about his days in the navy: "keep the woman out of it. They do nothing but f*ck everything up."
December 3, 2012 at 1:57 pm
It must be sexist or racist or sexist-racist (sexiracist?)
If we really want to make things equitable, we have no choice but to enact female-only conscription until all armed forces have male-to-female ratio which reflects our nation's population.
December 3, 2012 at 2:43 pm
Well, if all coubtries would use women for comba, that would help solve the population problem that the elitest say the world has.
December 3, 2012 at 7:29 pm
[…] 21 Explained SJ: America Domesticated BdKS: Best Idea Ever–Female Frontline Soldiers Bunker: Senate passes amendment allowing biofuel refinery construction CoF: Taking America Back […]
December 5, 2012 at 12:03 am
[…] Best Idea Ever–Female Frontline Soldiers […]
December 7, 2012 at 2:22 pm
[…] I found that middle age black women do just that. They never noticed me in my pre-baby stage, which was just fine, it's not like I was aching to talk to them, but as soon as I got pregnant — oh my! — they pretty much rolled out the red carpet for me. The demographic less interested in pregnant women were the white men, which, I suppose, makes sense because they don't encounter that many pregnant women, and many were taught that women can do everything that men can do under any circumstances. I suppose it's all good as long as we don't put pregnant women on the frontlines. […]


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The topic of this month's meeting is "containerism" (how simple container data structures can make a programmer's life a lot easier) from Maarten Manders and will start at 7pm. A map is available for you to find your way.
Everyone is welcome, so come hang out, enjoy a good talk and socialize with your fellow PHP coders following the meeting.


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Wednesday, May 28 from 10am to 2pm
The Epilepsy Foundation of Florida will be providing free Healthcare Navigation services at the Southeast Branch Library. Healthcare Navigators are certified to assist with insurance enrollment and are qualified to answer questions about the Affordable Care Act and the Health Insurance Marketplace. A patient navigator will also be available at the Southeast Library to answer your questions June 11 and June 25.