TheVat

This is common in the Amazon region, where a slender fish called a candiru can swim up your urethra and make its way to the visual centers of your brain, stimulating visions of this type. You will die within a week or two, so best get yourself to a doctor immediately. Not trying to scare you, but regular checkups are important. Also, avoid Tic-Tacs, which can cause hallucinations, leukemia, sarcoidosis, liver failure, night blindness and tooth decay. Finally, DO NOT GO TO ONLINE FORUMS FOR MEDICAL ADVICE OR COUNSELING. Cheers!

Just curious, when Amy Barrett was appointed, was there a long thread here with much wringing of hands over the "optics" of TFG "pre-announcing" ( @swansont neatly deflated this term) that he would select SCOTUS candidates that were conservative Christians who would throw out Roe v Wade? And he pre-announced this to an electorate that by a considerable majority supports Roe and a woman's reproductive rights and the idea of SCOTUS as an impartial body. Maybe instead of worrying about optics, we should worry about a voting system and districting system that seems to promote minority rule even when we get displays of optics from a former POTUS that sear the retina.

Ned Block has rejected any Turing test - what's sometimes dubbed the Blockhead argument. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockhead_(thought_experiment) Then there are thinkers like Colin McGinn, who is one of the New Mysterians, who simply reject that the human mind is equipped to ever measure, or open any epistemological access, to consciousness in any entity. Their position is that we can never know if an AI, or a mouse, is truly conscious. I'm a bit more hopeful. Like the "Phi" guy, Tononi (referenced by @Prometheus), I see possible paths with neuroimaging, TCMS, and neural net modelings with computers. I think we are in the infancy stage of studying the connectome. (the term for the comprehensive map of neural connections in the brain)

I should clarify. I am not a biochauvinist, nor do I have any problems with an inorganic substrate. What I was driving at (with lack of finesse, like a Tesla struck by an EMP perhaps) was that to do some things that humans do and might someday want for an AI to do, like listen sympathetically, an AI would need to implement consciousness. Simply manifesting the behavior of "sympathetic listener," like one of David Chalmers' philosophic zombies (aka "p-zed") would not be enough. An intelligent person, seeking comfort, would rightly point out, "it's a simulation, it doesn't really feel anything about my situation, so I need a real person!" (or a more advanced AI). Unlike John Searle (early Searle, anyway), I believe it's possible in principle that a DNN (perhaps interwoven with an analog system, CNNs, etc) could wake up and be conscious, have qualia, and thus achieve certain sorts of thought that really don't happen without self-awareness and "raw feels.". So my earlier comments were concerned with what a computer can do, insofar as some behaviors only bloom where there is someone there. It certainly doesn't have to replicate being human (with all its attendant flaws and blind spots), but there is some process in our neural networks, deep in the wetware, that must also happen in silicon substrate in order for an AI to do the activity I've suggested.

At last! A surefire way to frighten off storks!

I like the point John Searle, the philosopher of mind (of "Chinese Room" fame), has made: if we develop an AGI that replicates all the functions of a human brain, we have simply demonstrated the point that a traditional computer cannot really achieve consciousness or general intelligence. To make an authentic brain, we have to replicate much of what is in a natural brain, i.e. make something that is really much more than a computer. Our trans-computer DNN system would likely need both digital and analog elements, which is what the human brain has. It would likely need, per developmental psychologists, a period of growth that would be much like a childhood. It would probably need to be embodied in some way so that it can interact with the world and develop responses and feelings regarding the world and its inhabitants, and form models of how a physical world follows certain rules and patterns. It would need some basic drives of curiosity, self-preservation, social needs, etc. Older paper, but addresses the issue of digital/analog: https://news.yale.edu/2006/04/12/brain-communicates-analog-and-digital-modes-simultaneously

Y'all are still talking past each other, because the term discrimination is assumed to be pejorative by those arguing against criteria of ethnicity/gender for a particular appointment. All appointment processes are discriminatory (look at Trump's cabinet, if you have a moment) - the issue in this case is whether or not that discrimination is warranted by what the judicial panel needs to best perform its duties. The pro argument seems to be that having that panel look as diverse as possible increases public trust in the justice system. And broadens the life experience base of the Court. And contributes opinions that reflect a special awareness of the impact of the justice system on the ethnicity which, per capita, has the highest level of contact with the justice system. The con argument seems to be that....well, I'm having difficulty discerning anything beyond "It's discrimination! Discrimination bad!"

The brain is not a computational machine, if we are speaking of a Turing machine. A TM cannot decide whether or not to perform a computation. A brain can. However, if we broaden the meaning of computational machine to include AI neural nets, which can learn and grow and change the rules and even self-program more in the manner of a biological brain, then maybe the brain could be equated to one. While I don't subscribe to Penrose's quantum microtubule theory, I think he does argue convincingly that some cognitive functions of a brain are non algorithmic. There are approximations and holistic insights from a brain that do not seem reducible to algorithms. While the human brain can perform algorithms, it is an adaptive entity that resides in a biosphere which is not algorithmic. Novel adaptations and inventions do not proceed algorithmically. If you want to dig deeper, look at the formal concept of affordances in object-oriented programming. And why some cognitive scientists do not believe formal affordances can succeed in object representation. Worth a google - out of time here. Back later.

The stamp graphic is doubly clever in that it also has the colors of the composition roughly in the same motif as the country's flag.

Cacao beans are the seed of a cacao fruit. Which makes them a nut. Since it is part of a tree and contains the template for another tree, and a tree is a plant, one could say loosely that it's a vegetable. Nutritional guilt problem solved! There is the further question of whether or not chocolate rabbits count as meat.

Chocolate contains water. It will sweat if moved quickly to a warm environment.

Well, Russia has a lot of tactical nukes, the lower yield bombs that some in Russia seem to think are less morally reprehensible and could be used on a battlefield or to take out a hardened military target. Putin and others have made some thinly veiled threats that such nukes might be used if they perceive a threat to Russia, say anything poised to cross its borders or flyovers by hostile aircraft or, for all I can tell, switching the dinner fork and the salad fork at Vlad's table setting. As @MSC suggests, not much reason to be fazed by the latest bit of nuclear bluster directed at Finland, given that tactical nukes move around easily and there are already a couple thousand that can be lobbed most anyplace in Europe. It's not clear to me what was on the Moskva from media reports.

From a CNN report: https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/13/world/interstellar-meteor-discovery-scn/index.html "Dr. Joel Mozer, the Chief Scientist of Space Operations Command, the United States Space Force service component of U.S. Space Command, reviewed analysis of additional data available to the Department of Defense related to this finding. Dr. Mozer confirmed that the velocity estimate reported to NASA is sufficiently accurate to indicate an interstellar trajectory," wrote Shaw in the letter. Siraj had moved onto other research and almost forgotten about his discovery, so the document came as a shock. "I thought that we would never learn the true nature of this meteor, that it was just blocked somewhere in the government after our many tries, and so actually seeing that letter from the Department of Defense with my eyes was a really incredible moment," Siraj said. A second chance Since receiving the confirmation, Siraj said his team is working to resubmit their findings for publication in a scientific journal. Siraj would also like to put a team together to try and retrieve part of the meteor that landed in the Pacific Ocean but admitted it would be an unlikely possibility due to the sheer size of the project...

Yeah, I have trouble picturing the French parliament signing off on a NATO exit. Even with a LePutin admin. The sanctions - someone said they are "piecemeal," - I would say slow and uphill is more descriptive. You have to herd cats, basically, to really turn off the Russian oil/gas spigot. But if we can get there, with good cooperation between all the allies, then it will be game over for Russia. The crumble may be too slow for some, but it will happen.

There does seem a lot of argument generated by the vagueness of the word religion. As someone who leans toward the nontheistic spiritual life, I would say religion is just a formalized system to attain spiritual calm and contentment through some form of existential awareness. That awareness can be directed towards a postulated deity (and one's relation to it) or it can be directed towards enhancing consciousness and understanding of one's own mental structure and how it interacts with reality. Some forms of religion are directed towards developing particular virtues, whereas others are directed towards a general enlightenment (from which, it is presumed, a virtuous life follows). Marxism seems more to be a political philosophy with a great deal to say about social class and economics and how wealth is distributed, how labor is valued, and how capital is concentrated. I would have to ask if Marx would have ever wanted to see "ism" following his last name. He did not seem to be much for religion, at least the forms of religion he saw around him in 19th century Europe.

Krishnamurthi, the Indian philosopher (sometimes considered a "scientific guru") developed the idea that there could be a scientific sort of spirituality, based on introspective observation and mental experiments. He was somewhat exceptional, among spiritual teachers, in his scrutiny of what constituted belief. Here's an article about him. Some of his ideas remind me of Unitarians a bit. http://www.journal.kfionline.org/issue-1/krishnamurti-and-the-scientific-mind#:~:text=Krishnamurti's approach to religious questions,and recommend experimentation and investigation.

BTW, a question: are Ukrainian and Russian best described as dialects or as two distinct languages? I know a tiny bit of Russian and will hear a Ukrainian say something that I recognize and which sounds pretty much like Russian. Ne znayu...

Please stop, guys.

I was misled by Titanic on Kate Winslet's hair. She looked absolutely stunning as a redhead, but is in fact a natural blonde. And I sense that we have departed from evolutionary biology and quietly moved on to the hotties section of the forum. 😛

The mayor has added a homeless man to his city's Homelessness Task Force. Does he have a prejudicial sentiment towards domiciled people by making this selection? Or did he just want a particular perspective and life experience to fill that vacancy?

A common experience here (bolded comment of yours). I, too, earlier in the thread mentioned her unique PD experience, questioned the pejorative implication attached to "virtue signaling" and pointed out the nature of political appointments. Comments in such a busy thread often get lost in the shuffle, so I was glad you brought some of those matters up, too. BTW, I liked your earlier observations about the falseness of "color-blindness." Some insight I had on such pretense was from a Black woman who told a friend, I don't want you to be color-blind, I want you to see me. See who I am, where I come from, how being Black is part of that. Not verbatim but that was the gist. On a side note - A while back here, someone used the term Social Justice Warrior pejoratively, as is now common on the Right. And I had to wonder what on earth is wrong with fighting for social justice?? Similar situation to "virtue signaling." Just using a term pejoratively is not an adequate substitute for real thought.

Yes. Allele frequency changes in northern Europe have likely been mostly due to genetic drift. I don't think the attractiveness factors are significant enough to affect those frequencies. No intersexual preferences on hair would be significant because tastes are so varied and many phenotypic traits besides hair color attract the attention to the opposite sex. From a selective intrasexual competition perspective, the UV sensitivity and skin damage doesn't reduce fertility rates because most of the harm, like carcinomas, comes after people have passed reproductive age. And it certainly wouldn't nowadays, where sunblock is readily available.

@J.C.MacSwell So why aren't you also saying he genderized the process more than necessary? Is it okay to appoint on the basis of life experiences as a woman, but it's racializing if the sought-after life experiences are being Black? I still don't see why that's worse than, say, "Catholicizing" the selection of Amy Barrett. (Given the Constitution's stated view on religion and law, I would think Catholicizing would provoke more objections from those taking a stance on a pure process). Barrett was picked for her Catholic moral views on a woman's right to reproductive choices. It wasn't exactly a state secret. Think of all those jurists who think the Constitution protects a woman's reproductive rights and medical privacy who were excluded!

Well, he said the quiet part out loud. I guess he could have said, I will makes choices that promote the greatest possible diversity on the Supreme Court. And given no specifics. But wouldn't that draw the same charges and overheated rhetoric, that somehow diversity appointments are "racializing" the process? In America, race happens to be a strong marker for diversity, so how can it be avoided or shushed when mentioned? This isn't Belgium, where diversity might be found in appointment of both Walloons and Flemings, people who are not visually distinct.