vger

Do you mean to say that it isn't a step closer to creating sentient AI? I'm not sure what you're getting at by saying "they don't know what they're looking at." Do you mean that you have an alternate interpretation? Or simply that it's too soon to jump to conclusions about what it means? I don't think it's fair to compare it to electric sheep, which seems to be little more than cloud-based fractal generation. That's a lot less intuitive than the 'art' images.

And here comes the part where it will be proven that robots can even do art better than a human. One would have thought that in the 'jobless' world of the future, we would've still at least had creativity in order to give ourselves relevance. So much for that.

@Wanderfound: Deep. Really... frikkin... deep.

Bloody frickin frackin frak froook frorck frick fruck! I'm in Newfoundland, Canada right now but didn't catch this until now. And now of course, the sky is completely overcast. *beats head against keyboard until skull is fractured*

Sounds like it's basically the most inefficient steam engine ever. If I understand correctly, you're talking about intentionally dumping water into space. Spinning a turbine as the water rushes from a pressurized compartment into a vacuum? You're also going to generate thrust as a biproduct, which is another thing you just shouldn't have to deal with if all you're concerned with is making electricity. Or if you're talking about pumping water into space from Earth, you're actually talking about something that would be even harder to accomplish than a space elevator. You'd be much better off trying to "beam" energy to your space vehicle. You'll get better results, without having to build the strongest pipe in the world, or the most powerful pump.

Your description alone, suggests a more interesting diagram. Why is JWST on top of the Helpful Lady?

I think this is exactly how a sextant works. Normally that is used for astro-navigation but that should work if you needed to find the horizon.

That's essentially the best answer I think that can be given, unless we stumble upon some incredible "seems like magic at first" element of how human thought works. And no, I don't think that's even remotely likely. Debating 'Artificial' is a bit like debating 'natural,' as it applies to the definition of industry. We're not the only animals who use tools or build structures and civilizations, but nobody argues that ants are unnatural. If you've been thinking as critically about this one as you did about "buyer responsibility" before you formed your conclusion, I'm not surprised that you think so.

You know EXACTLY what I meant. Alright then, smart-aleck. When do you think it should have human rights? And just in case anyone thinks this is a derail attempt, it's not. "Right-to-life has always been intertwined with the vague definition of what classifies as a sentient being."

The topic is too greatly in flux to quantify it. You will find no less difficulty deciding how many cells a fetus needs before you can classify it as a human. Or for an example more relevant to KSP, Pluto being or NOT being a planet. There is no truth to it, beyond where people agree to draw the lines. A lot of folks here are using the animal mind as a goal post, but we've barely scratched the surface of even understanding how the brain works.

In how I have seen the word used, "soul" is equivalent to personality/consciousness or "the human condition." Soul has a secular definition and has had it for a long time. The only reason I can see for people to shy away from it so often now is anti-theists trying to make the world know just HOW anti-theistic they are. But, no big deal in this case. Here's a better example, and one that a lot of us have probably seen done in books or movies. How would a computer that was sentient, be capable of proving itself to us? I can think of nothing that couldn't be attributed to "just following its programming," especially if the AI is capable of learning more by observing our behavior. If we created an AI with logic that was sufficient at emulating human behavior, it seems apparent to me that we wouldn't be able to say whether or not it was a real consciousness. It could go either way, just as with us. Are we just programmed for survival, emulating the most efficient method that evolution has reached so far? Observing and adapting to improve our odds? Or is there more to it? As humans, we can beg for our lives, but even that wouldn't prove we're sentient. If a machine did that, we'd probably just assume that it had observed people doing this, calculated the odds, and realized that it would be less likely to be destroyed if it emulated that behavior.

More specifically I was doing it means because we can't even properly gauge ourselves. If you take away the immortality aspect, "soul" and "sentience" are essentially the same thing.

I hope you realize that this is basically the same kind of argument that gets used to say that humans "don't have a soul." We're nothing more significant than a conglomerate of bio-electric impulses and chemical reactions. Unfortunately, truly being able to prove whether or not this happens in other life forms, would require being able to subjectively become one. We would have enough of a hard time figuring out if squirrels ever contemplate their own existence, to say nothing about a tree. If an alien race were to study humans, if they were complex enough, they might be able to make the same conclusions that you are. "How can they be sentient? They don't even have fleeblebrox glands." An advanced race would probably look at our brain no differently than you are looking at the entire plant. Quite obviously, some creatures don't need centralized processing in order to function, even ones that hunt and forage. just like an entire plant organism, the brain is ultimately just a big colony of cells. For me anyway, the question of sentience is too subjective to prove or disprove that other lifeforms, even single-celled ones, are capable or incapable of it. To use our own physiology as a gauge of whether or not other lifeforms are capable of it, seems no less limited than "it's only a living thing if it has carbon in it."

We certainly can and have recorded reactions to stimuli in plants. Chemically, some plants can even react to the distress of other plants.

I don't see how processing speed has any impact on whether or not something is capable of sentience. I can't help but think of the Ent in the Lord of the Rings films who said, "If it doesn't take a long time to say something, it probably isn't worth saying." This isn't to say that plants necessarily fit the bill. But comeon... if computers were sentient, would the iPods be claiming that the Apple II's didn't classify? Based on the response in this thread, I guess the answer would be yes.

Seriously, do you think Monsanto wouldn't mix apples with squid DNA, if they thought they could make a glow-in-the-dark fruit?

Do they know what condition its in? Is it an 'acceptable' landed position? Laying on its side? Upside down? Did it sustain any damage? Granted, I know the 'collision' with the comet when the harpoon failed was probably an extremely slow-motion process, give that the comet's finite gravity was enough to hold onto it, but then, things like solar panels aren't what I would call durable. It's hard not to picture it being crushed like a beer can while it was bouncing across the surface. And I at least thought the harpoon was needed to keep it tethered to the comet while using the drill, but apparently even that isn't the case.

I seem to remember an arms locker full of shotguns. As long as Raptors don't think like some modern pack animals. Taking control of a wolf pack would involve beating the tar out of the incumbent alpha. And considering the Raptors from JP1 had an alpha who killed 5 of the original 8, just to prove her point... yeah. Have fun assimilating into that culture. Oh dear. Don't tell me the "active camouflage" dino from the Lost World novel got the shaft a THIRD time. Edit: Nevermind. I just saw the comment containing "cuttlefish."

El Dorado.

Harry Mudd was a great character. But Vin? ............no!

I think the answer to your question can be answered by the following question: What is a best way too troll a grammar ****?

That's all very creepy and cool at the same time. Using the dead to re-fertilize the Earth. I like it.

My first thought when he was falling through it was that he was looking at a manifestation of "infinite worlds" theory. My jaw was just hanging open at that point. I didn't feel any less boggled though when I started realizing that each 'interation' was a bookshelf. Then I thought maybe it was a literal "Akashic Record," a newage spiritual concept that contains the entirety of human experience (though a tesseract like in the film would technically be that anyway, whether Nolan intended it or if it's just an ironic accident).

All I can think of is the "Clamp Cable Network" apocalypse signoff from Gremlins 2.

That certainly explains a lot of the confusion. I believed you were intentionally masking a layer of intent. Giving basic statements without discussing the more intricate details of it, typically leads to a lot of speculation about what a person's position on a topic really is. And then you end up with labels being tossed around that don't really reflect the person's stance at all. Apologies.