dhs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elements_song

As we saw with the example of search engines, a new competitor may split an existing market, only to have it later converge on his product, because he made something people liked. If they manage to do that, it might just get downloaded by users, mandated by companies, and shipped with Linux desktops as the default interface. It's made by Google, and the idea has been around for a decade, so I take it as not impossible that it could be that good.

http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~sousa/BRUTUS_rev.html

Bringsjord makes another relevant contribution to the debate in "BRUTUS and the Narrational Case Against Church's Thesis", which used to be available from citeseer, but that site is down ATM, so I cannot provide a link.

But since you're asking a question of your own instead of answering mine, I take it that you don't know of any evidence, either.

There are competing theories. One of them, which is backed by some empirical evidence, is "Continuity of Mind" by Michael Spivey

http://www.amazon.com/Continuity-Mind-Oxford-Psychology/dp/0...

Short summary by Spivey:

http://www.cogsci.rpi.edu/CSJarchive/Proceedings/2003/pdfs/3...

Another approach, also relying heavily on experiments, is the "Grounded Cognition" thesis, of which Lawrence Barsalou gives a good summary:

http://www.psychology.emory.edu/cognition/barsalou/papers/Ba...

From the abstract:

"Grounded cognition rejects traditional views that cognition is computation on amodal symbols in a modular system, independent of the brain’s modal systems for perception, action, and introspection. Instead, grounded cognition proposes that modal simulations, bodily states, and situated action underlie cognition."

EDIT: I forgot a very interesting one involving a computational experiment:

Selmer Bringsjord, "A New Gödelian Argument for Hypercomputing Minds Based on the Busy Beaver Problem"

http://www.osl.iu.edu/~kyross/pub/new-godelian.pdf

Now I'm looking for evidence which supports your theory - that brains = minds = computers. Affirming that a theory exists without providing evidence that it is true is not enough.

   One of the sacrifices that will have to be made is that we will have to admit that we could be emulated on a computer and are little more than self aware information.

%Fat=495/(1.0324-.19077(log(abdomen-neck))+.15456(log(height)))-450

Appearently they did a study on how precise it is, "Comparison of Circumference-and Skinfold-Based Body Fat Estimation Equations", where they compared their formula with several other methods for body fat estimation, against a baseline set by hydrostatic weighting. I couldn't find the full text online (at least not for free), but the abstract is here:

http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPr...

Quote: "For men, the Navy equation was the best predictor of body fat determined by hydrostatic weighing."

So all you need to track your body fat is a measuring tape plus a pen and a pad. That's too much of an effort for me, though, so I use one of the web-based calculators, e.g.

http://www.dietandfitnesstoday.com/body-fat-percentage-calcu...

(you need to allow JS to use it).

The cigars tasted nice, though.

If you ask Kevin Warwick, a.k.a. Captain Cyborg, who hosts this year's Loebner Prize Contest at Reading University, a machine might pass the Turing test a little more than four months from now: "I believe machines are getting extremely close - it would be tremendously exciting if such a world first occurred in the UK, in Reading University in 2008. This is a real possibility." Yes, he really said that <http://www.reading.ac.uk/research/Highlights-News/featuresne... >.

Then there are the Artificial General Intelligence guys, like Ben Goertzel, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Pei Wang. Roughly, they claim we're getting there, agree that everybody else is doing it wrong, but can't agree on which of them is doing it right. But wait, even Doug Lenat is still in the game; go watch his Google presentation <http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7704388615049492068... >.

And then there are those who think that AI is a medium ("Expressive AI"), and that the most interesting applications are in videogames like "Spore" and interactive dramas like "Facade". That's what interests me most, personally. Well, I keep track on all the other stuff, too, but I see that also from the AI-as-medium angle, not from a the-singularity-is-coming angle.

Oh yea, and then the article quotes a "futurist" called Daniel Burros: "The first application of successful AI was in the financial services industry for loan qualifications. Loan qualification went from one to two weeks down to minutes." A qualification that struck me as kinda subprime, I must say.

I hate those multi-page ad-pushers (even with adblock - the clicking requirement is just annoying). It would be nice if submitters would check whether there's a one-page option available, and use that link if it is.

Even more unexpectedly, today the "interesting window into what sort of community justin.tv is creating" has, erm, closed, obviously. Try going to http://blog.justin.tv/2008/06/caught-on-jtv.html and see for yourself.

Could it be that the real novel idea has been one about hacking Hacker News?

"Ein Hündchen wird gesucht, das weder murrt noch beißt, zerbrochene Gläser frißt und Diamanten scheißt."

Roughly translates to:

"Looking for a doggy which will neither snarl nor bite, broken glass shall be its food and diamonds be its shite."

To me, the dispute seems not to be to be about whether the globe is warming up, but about whether we have caused this warming-up, about whether we can prevent and/or reverse it, and also about whether the activities of us puny humans can have a significant impact on the system at all. Ok, his might be excused as some "shorthand formulation". but he's making judgments of science and of scientists here, so I'd think that some precision would be in order.

Anyway... eugenics. Crichton describes eugenics as a form of politicized science, which caused people to be discriminated against, sterilized, and even killed in large numbers. It was bad.

About two thirds through his text, he cites another example of politicized science: Lysenkoism. Trofim Lysenko was a Russian biologist who speculated that aquired characteristics of plants (and presumably other organisms) could be inherited, and that soaking wheat grains in water and burying the wet seed in snow over the winter would improve crop yields. During the time from 1948 to 1964, criticism of Lysenko's theories was formally outlawed in the Soviet Union; academic critics were thrown in jail. As a consequence of such foolish behavior, many people died through famine. It was bad.

In the final quarter, then, he brings on global warming:

"Once again, critics are few and harshly dealt with."

Oh, really? What happens to them? Are they jailed, or killed? Crichton doesn't say. Instead, he says:

"Once again, claims of moral superiority are used to justify extreme actions."

What kind of extreme actions are taken? Are those actions comparable with those he cites, like letting peasants starve, sterilizing "feeble-minded" Californians, or killing Jews in concentration camps? He doesn't say. But:

"Once again, the fact that some people are hurt is shrugged off because an abstract cause is said to be greater than any human consequences."

Ah, some people are hurt. So it must be bad. But how are they hurt? Are they starved, jailed, killed? Does he refer to the critics again, or to some other people? Not a word about it...

I don't know whether or not human activities cause/prevent global warming. I believe that the jury's still out on that. But if, as Crichton writes, he really wishes that "knowledge is disinterested and honest", I think he should refrain from drawing the kind of comparisons he draws here. This text reads like scientizied politics. In fact, as a source of knowledge, it's indistinguishable from politicized science to me.