StringJunky

Damn.... how did I miss that!

This style of conversation delivery doesn't promote continuation; it sucks the oxygen out of it, killing all participants. It is the thermobaric bomb of conversation killers.

Your mind harks back to the last interesting thing that happened in your life. As time passes your memory tends to just string together the interesting parts and ignore the boring inbetween bits.... interesting to you that is. What we then do is put all these interesting evehts in sequence, removing the gaps. So, say you did something memorable in 2015 and then you plodded along for a few months/years, then had another memorable experience, only those two items in that period were memorable to you are likely to be remembered via long term memory far down the line of time. For things to be memorable in the long term, they need to have a significant impact on you in some way, such that that they impress on your memory more persistently. If an event doesn't alter your level of mood, say, then it will likely go down the memory toilet. What we are actually forgetting is the mundane, routine bits because they are plastically embedded in our brain and we don't need to remember... those routines are executed automatically. If everything you do is routine everyday, you'll likely feel a deficit of accomplishment when you try to look back... as you do now. The solution is to try and do something everyday that stimulates you and, most importantly, feels novel to you. This can be acheived by learning something that interests you. Also, try and make your life less routine where you can... mix things up abit. The other thing is your age. As we get older we slow down physically and in alertness. The subjective pace of time speeds up as well because of decreasing metabolism, in part. Our personal clock slows down so events seem to flow faster; further exacerbating that feeling of insufficient accomplishent and losing time. Import some novelty into your life and live everyday like it's your last... You should have lots more to remember with shorter gaps between significant memories. Most people go through your situation at some point, particularly near 40. This is how I've addressed this to myself over the years. I'm 61 now.

Yes, it's a strategy used by many political groups. I think the redder Tories know they won't get away with it. A blackhole, which is the NHS, is always gagging for money.

I think it stems from the brain's default mode to put things in boxes. When the thing being boxed fails to find a match it will llook through itself to find some thing to match it. When it starts thinking really hard, maybe motivated by beliefs, it will concoct a category for it in the direction of those beliefs.

This cartoon illustrates that MO quite well: We need them because we don't know what we need in the future.

NO. It is a dessicant. It has an affinity for water. They love each so much and it takes energy to separate them.

Time to get your card out. How many OS versions since xp? You cannot reasonably expect backward compatibility for this long, given the rate of change..

I know your not, I meant it rhetorically, but that's an obstacle.

How does one discretely segment a process, that is a continuum, to allow us to answer that question? If we look at a rainbow, where does one colour start and another begin? Only if we look from far enough away do we see sharp banding i.e. we have less data available.

The way I look it can be expressed as "All swans are white until we find a black one." There is an expectation but, as yet, no confirmation. I'm disinclined to speculate because there is nothing to work with that has gained any traction. The present knowledge is too vague and fuzzy to commit to a binary position.

You are probably not far wrong there.

I think it will just happen somewhere with the starting gun for AI going off recently.... after that they will try and figure out how it happened. Let us hope we know when it happens.

If it responds like a human, then another human will sense the same familiarity as they would with another human... it would pass as an autonomous thinking device.

Because we don't know the language/sensory model they use, so how can we know? Using other organisms is a non-starter because there is no intrinsic familiarity between bees and humans. With humans as familiar models, we can collate, correlate subjective experiences and objective observations to bring us closer to a useful description.

Using anything other than ourselves will get you nowhere because what reference do you have, we don't know the subjective experience of bees but we do of ourselves.

When a posse of expert people say it has. Confirmation has to come from that 'system' it is trying to emulate. That system is our consciousness, which is needed as the reference point.

Right. Yeah, magnets. I was trying to think what is magnetic in a modern tv and forgot about the speakers.

Could it be from static electricity in or on the tv?

1, A machine is an apparatus, which may be of physical or virtual construction, that can perform useful work. 2c Once it passes that test, then we know what is necessary for consciousness. 3. I was wishing to keep to the operative/process side, rather than the nuts and bolts... obviously, such a device won't be the same in construction and likely won't pass sight differentiation. We cannot know a priori what we need to know. This seems to be a feature to me of emergent phenomena.

A machine is conscious when we can't discern the difference functionally.

"Ooh, look at my little Johnny, he's the only one marching in step."

It could be ten years or more before it is released, subject to approval.

Think about it, but don't let your brain fall out. This is a science forum, which means we are voluntarily binding to sets of agreed standards; aliens do not yet meet the evidentiary thresholds.