went out with a high school friend tonight. saw his little brother... who is now doing research with phage viruses creating micro-magnetic particles. his prior work with carbon nano-tubules interested me more, but...
i want to do that. let me try it! my turn!
oh, wait, that's right... i have to finish my thesis paper to get my degrees. otherwise, i have wasted thousands of dollars, and years of time, energy, and concern. forgot about that. well, i always have that vacation time coming up.
ah well. i guess i'll just build some more modules for my modular synth; instead of having any extroverted experiences. that sounds nice.
well, i'm off to it.
i want to do that. let me try it! my turn!
oh, wait, that's right... i have to finish my thesis paper to get my degrees. otherwise, i have wasted thousands of dollars, and years of time, energy, and concern. forgot about that. well, i always have that vacation time coming up.
ah well. i guess i'll just build some more modules for my modular synth; instead of having any extroverted experiences. that sounds nice.
well, i'm off to it.
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What's your thesis on? Grad or undergrad degree?
ok, it's a wierd triple major undergrad degree, and one of the requirements is to bang out a capstone thesis combining two of the majors... i chose mathematics and philosophy... 6 years ago.
anyway, it's on a new-ish form of artificial intelligence. you see, i am left completely unsatisfied with conventional AI in that the programming is trying to emulate the input/output data set of humans... you know, if a program can communicate with you in a convincingly human way, it must be intelligent.
balderdash, i say! if we are not even sure what "intelligence" is, let alone consciousness, then the only way to be reasonably sure that a construct has these qualities is to model absolutely every causal element. for instance, each nueron must be represented with several hundred parameters (how it is electrically charged, how large it is, how healthy it is, its chemical qualities... etc...), then this single element must be compared to a real nueron. if, finally, the responce to similair stimuli is the virtually identical between the real and the modelled neuron, then the next step can be taken.
connect each modelled nueron in the same manner that its real counterparts are connected. then give the whole thing some stimulus, and watch it go. of course, there will be little intelligible output at first (think of a newborn's brain). but, after some time, with the appropriate stimuli...
anyway... i guess the whole point is: mathematically model the brain, and the "mind" will emerge as a consequence. trying to model the mind, without a sufficiently complex brain analog, and it would all be smoke and mirrors.