I wonder about all this talk and arguing back and forth over whether "it's a fake".
What this man is expressing is real. I can confirm it is real, because as a human I can feel many of the same things, as I read it. Whether he will die in 30 days or not, we don't know. And you can, of course, argue about that all day long. You might even be quite put out if he does not. But whether he is having these thoughts and feelings because he is about to die, or whether he is simply exploring these thoughts and feelings because he is a human (and facing death like us all), they are no less real. You may call one fiction because the man does not die on cue, but after reading it, I say it is not fake.
Well said. Joseph Gordon Levitt isn't actually facing death in the movie 50/50, but I can assure you the anxieties expressed in that movie touch me profoundly.
I believe the retransmitted quantum packet would be necessarily different from the original. So the receiving node notices that the packet has been modified, but because it expects the (secure) hub to modify the original, all is well.
clients can only tell that the message they received from the hub was actually from the hub and was not observed by anyone but the hub. there's no way to tell a message from client A to client B wasn't tampered with or observed before the hub delivered it
So if you're supposed to trust all hops on your message, quantum cryptography has no real appreciable improvement over standard digital communications (where the same problem exists).
> The problems occur when they're trying to do stuff on their local machines.
By all means, try to explain that to users if you like, and if you think they'd care. The issue is that it breaks the user experience, whatever technical reason you'd like to attribute that to.
I'm not explaining anything to the users, I'm just explaining to you how you're wrong when you state that they "broke the web for their users".
The users are completely irrelevant, because no matter how much they bitch and moan, they're not going to leave Facebook. Its network effects are too powerful. And so, for once, I actually support Facebook. They're using their dominant market position to push a new standard that is quite good. This will hopefully force companies like Adobe to start adding support for WebP by default. Then we'll finally able to ditch obsolete standards like JPEG and its ilk once and for all.
This is one of those times where changing something breaks somebody's work flow because they're doing things outside of spec. And in cases like this, you have to say "get over it."
Facebook is still doing what Facebook intends to do, in fact they do it better! It's unfortunate that a tiny margin of users are slightly inconvenienced, but they need to get over it.
Yes, of course both are. But still, you're only ever going to be conscious from the perspective contained within the original you. The copy may be mathematically identical, but it does not make sense that there would be any kind of a magical transition of consciousness from one to the other. The other "you" would have its own consciousness entirely separate from yours. I.e., if you copy yourself and kill the original, you will lose consciousness. You will not wake up.
Imagine I have a magical device with which I can "stop time", or more precisely, stop movement of all particles except mine. In the beginning I am at our right. I stop time, move leisurely to your left and resume time.
What you see is me teleporting from your right to your left. You don't feel "trapped in a body who can't move", because your neurons are also magically frozen. Your consciousness feel continuous, even is you have been "suspended" for a while, because your memories are properly structured. Consciousness is not "something else", it is a property of your memories. (The blog post on lesswrong.com about timeless physics is important to see this point of view, I think, even if you don't buy the theory).
So if my copy is mathematically identical then there is nothing else left. There is no extra consciousness stuff that the "original" has and the "copy" does not.
Sorry, I really can't explain myself better. I'd suggest reading the link provided.
I will read what you suggest, but perhaps you can illustrate how would the sensation of identity will transfer from the physical body to the digital body? Because your example does not explain it.
Let's suppose we believe that everything about me can be contained in the physical processes that happen in my body.
Now suppose that we have the ability to digitally simulate those processes perfectly. Since my existence is purely physical, the "sensation of identity" you describe is perfectly captured by this digital simulation, by definition.
It could be duplicated, but then it would be a copy and not the one you currently have. I expect you can easily imagine this by picturing your copy uploaded to the simulator while you live and then running the simulation.
Whatever the copy does after that you won't experience and it won't be part of your memories. If you say that's not the case and that you will experience and be aware of what the copy is doing, then you are proposing some sort of metaphysical connection between the two beings, which I find hard to swallow.
I like this definition of identity: "A person's identity is defined as the totality of one's self-construal, in which how one construes oneself in the present expresses the continuity between how one construes oneself as one was in the past and how one construes oneself as one aspires to be in the future"
I don't know where you're getting the idea about a psychic connection. That's a strange idea, and I don't see anyone suggesting that.
What I see you doing is presupposing the "I" and "it" beforehand as if the future clone does not share all your memories and experience. Right now the clone and you are one and the same. Just as you can imagine a copy uploaded to a simulator and ran, it is equally valid for you to imagine blacking out during the brain scan and waking up in a virtual world. Before you undergo the brain scan it would be wise to prepare yourself for possibly waking up as the clone.
I and my copy are the same only in the instant the copy is made 'alive', the second after that we will not be equal, and every second that passes we will diverge more, unless there is some kind of metaphysical connection.
The virtual world copy will of course be (just like) me the instant it wakes up, but I (the original) won't experience the virtual world. I don't see how the original could wake up in the virtual world.
There are three states of being here, and you're confusing two of them. First, there is pre-you: the you before the cloning point. After that there is the original and the clone, both of which share the exact same pre-you experience. Just because you are pre-you doesn't mean you will be the original after the cloning point, since both the original and the clone branch from pre-you. If you are the copy, your experience is that you were pre-you first and then suddenly you woke up in a virtual world. This is illustrated simply by looking at the fork() command. You cannot make a fork() call and then have the code afterwards presuppose that it is the parent process without checking the return code. In the same way, you cannot be sure that you are the original after the cloning point unless you have solid evidence of it.
It would be an exact copy of your mind. Think about that. All of your experiences, memories, thought-patterns, etc., including all of your presuppositions that you will be the original. You sit there and smugly tell yourself that you will not be the clone. You couldn't possibly wake up as a clone, right? That the clone is going to be this "other" thing over there that has nothing to do with you. Guess what? The clone wakes up having had all of those exact same thoughts and experiences. The clone is you. I wouldn't recommend that anyone in this state of mind go through a cloning process because it would just end up with a confused, depressed and generally fucked up clone.
I fully agree that the copy will rightly believe it's the original, and for all practical matters to the rest of the world he can very well be considered an original, if he can at least communicate with the outside.
But this just doesn't consider the fact that in the real world, there was a real original who went to a copying facility and then went home, in the physical world. This person does have the return value of fork() [$] and does not experience the virtual world.
It's in this sense I'm saying I can't imagine going to a copying facility and waking up in a virtual world. I can perfectly imagine a copy doing that, but it won't have my future experiences. In fact, going further, given my beliefs, were "I" to wake up in a virtual world I'd be sure I'm a copy, because I'm certain the original could not wake up in a virtual world.
[$]: As long as we don't get fancy with psychothriller manoeuvres where the original is drugged and the copy has a body clone that returns home to his wife, while everyone tells the real original he's in a virtual world.
Yes, there is a "you" who went to the facility and then went home. There is also a "you" who went to the facility and subsequently blacked out only to wake up later somewhere else. An outside observer sees you walk in, a scan made, and you walk out. From the perspective of the post-original, you walked in, scanned, then walked out. From the perspective of the copy, you walked in, blacked out, and then woke up later.
I guess my point is just that when you refer to yourself pre-cloning, you have to realize that you're speaking (and thinking) for the copy as well. It's fun to think about. Makes for great sci-fi.
Yes, but it will create a new sensation of identity on the copy, which would be equal but separate to yours. That's the gist of the point. See my other answers around this subthread.
I only object to the privileging of "your" consciousnes. I don't know how to express it. Yes, of course when the copy is made each person-thread evolves on its own. My point is that you can't distinguish one being "the original" and the other "the copy".
Just imagine that, in the normal course of things, a person at time t is constantly being copied into a slightly different new person at t+dt and then destroyed. There is a causal connection and thus an inheritance of memories, but not single "essence about yourself" being conserved.
With current technology we only have a directed linear graph, like o -> o -> o -> ... . With uploading tech this graph will fork into two paths, but neither of them can claim to be "the original", because there is no such thing.
I mean, maybe this concept of "personal identity" is simply wrong. It's an illusion because currently threads of causality on people are linear, but that's just a technological limitation.
It's very rational for you to avoid privileging any single one of my copies, but for me it's very rational to privilege my own instance. And likewise, I wouldn't care which one of your copies thrive, but I would expect that you would hope your instance is the one that survives.
And I don't see how linearity has to do with self-preservation instincts. Maybe you are arguing that once we have several diverging copies the self-preservation instinct will change and be content as long as one copy still survives? I just can't imagine it.
Let's say we can copy me. As in, we make another me (let's call him me* ) that is physically identical to me in every possible way.
I believe your argument is that I will continue to be me, and me* will essentially be a different person. If I die, that's it. me* lives on, but I am not me* , I am me.
The interesting question, which your parent (in the thread) posits an answer to, is what is the actual difference between me and me* ?
If you believe that humans exist entirely within the physical world (as in, there's no mystical/religious/spiritual element to our existence--we're just matter and energy), then me and me* are no different. Suppose we go back to your idea, that we kill me after creating me* . Since I am purely a physical being, I have no way of distinguishing between me and me* . In particular, if you never told me that I am me* , I would have absolutely no way of distinguishing the difference between me and me* .
Wouldn't me and me's consciousness diverge after a few hours experiencing different things in different places? If so, would me agree to suicide knowing that me is still alive?
If by consciousness you mean introspection or self-modeling or something like that then consciousness is definitely real. But it's just a property that some minds have, and that someday will probably be analyzed and replicated in silico.
But if you mean some kind of special conserved "essence" that makes you "you" in addition of your memories... then yes, it's probably just an illusion.
Frankly, anyone who has paid attention to what Paul has actually said or done in the last 20 years knows this in no way represents his views. In fact, quite the opposite, Paul is by far the most open and tolerant in the GOP field. The fact that some people are willing to focus on these says more about them than about Paul.
The mainstream media works its magic by taking a mural 100 miles square and repeatedly hilighting the same 50 square inches. They do this in order to create the perception that fits their agenda, and ignoring the rest. It's an extremely effective technique. It's very easy to control what people think, not by lying to them, but controlling what they think about.
He's not racist, as long as people of all colors assimilate into his culture. I can see the confusion: people who aren't part of this culture see that as a set of racist, irrational beliefs that lead to stop-and-frisk harassment and profiling in airports, whereas Ron Paul obviously has a cultural fear of people different from himself and doesn't equate that with skin color except by correlation. He doesn't consider this "racism", and thus is offended by the implications.
We disagree on the terms and on whether or not it is a disqualifying feature for the highest office in the land, but we should at least be able to agree that the only evidence we have for what he believes have been the things he's done or said. That he began claiming he never did them when they became politically inconvenient doesn't mean he's changed his mind.
I wouldn't care what he said 20 years ago if he stood up and said, "yes, I said those things. Since then, however, I have spent more time with people from cultures I had previously been isolated from and feared, as many of us do when faced with the unfamiliar. I now appreciate that theses communities have come together in the face of adversity and are an assets to this nation." Instead he claimed that Not Me did it, and looks about as mature as that kid from Family Circus while doing so.
Uh-huh. I've paid attention to Paul just fine, and I can see he's not against Jews at all, unless we want to have a country - you know, like hundreds of other peoples.
Thanks, but I can do without his form of 'tolerance'. Anyone else in the GOP is preferable.
Agreed. It's the same as the "occupy" movement saying that corporations shouldn't influence government. It's true, but it's the politicians who are the problem. Everyone, the content providers included, should be representing their best interests to politicians. The burden is on the politicians to remain uncorrupted and to represent the best interests of their constituents to the fullest degree possible under law.
If, after several hundred years of trying, we haven't yet found the mythical race of "uncorruptible politician", it might be time for a plan B, like systemic changes to reduce the effects of corruption on the very-human politicians we do have (and are likely to continue having). That's essentially the campaign-finance-reform argument, that the problem isn't going to be solved by hoping that the next crop of politicians, unlike just about every crop throughout human history, will be selfless saints who don't respond to incentives; rather, the solution is to change the incentives.
it might be time for a plan B, like systemic changes to reduce the effects of corruption ... That's essentially the campaign-finance-reform argument
No, your response doesn't address your goal at all. CFR doesn't do a darned thing to "reduce the effects of corruption". It seeks to decrease the possible vectors of corruption (both in quantity and magnitude), but it does absolutely nothing to address the effects of corruption.
What yummyfajitas and others have been arguing is precisely for a solution to the problem you cite, the effects of corruption. That is to make it so that it matters much less how a bureaucrat gets corrupted, by stripping him of power to the greatest extent possible, so that the potential for damage he can cause is minimized.
That so-called solution also ties the hands of honest reformers. Obstruction of regulatory function is just as subject to corruption as an excess thereof. The notion that the payor is morally pure is absurd; public choice theory shows that large entities like corporations and unions have every incentive to rig the process by exploiting the rational ignorance of the median voter.
What makes it any more reasonable to suggest that it's possible to change the incentives than to suggest we can find uncorruptible politicians?
I don't think that this systemic view aligns with the campaign-finance-reform argument argument at all; the people who want money out of politics regard money itself as the root cause of the problem, but neglects to address the real underlying incentives that money - merely an abstraction of value - actually represents. If you take money out of the picture, those incentives will still exist, and still convey political advantage. Who dominates politics then, if not the wealthiest? The most well-connected? The most ruthless?
The real, underlying systemic problem is the centralized concentration of de jure power in a small set of political institutions. This will always be susceptible to concentrated influence, whether via money or otherwise.
It's a good question; perhaps we can't. I think it's worth thinking about and considering if we really can't do anything to reduce likelihood or magnitude of corruption, though. The founding fathers spent a decent amount of time thinking about it in their own historical context, rather than leaving it purely to a trust that voters will punish politicians who behave badly. For example, the U.S. Constitution has written into it a prohibition on federal officeholders accepting titles of nobility, no matter how much voters like or dislike the politician in question; they just decided not to leave that question for the voters, but thought it would lead to less corruptible politics if politicians were completely banned from accepting noble titles. That at least doesn't seem to have had any particularly bad effects, though there is debate over whether it had good effects or was just symbolic anti-monarchism. It does seem vaguely analogous to some of the no-gifts clauses that have been proposed and/or implemented more recently, though the analogy isn't perfect.
I think the founding fathers presumed that a certain level of corruption and abuse will always exist; their solution was to make it very difficult for any single political institution or office-holder to act autonomously, and deliberately constrained the exercise of power, so as to make effective corruption quite expensive and complicated.
Our modern trend toward increasing political centralization and removal of constraints on power is what's making corruption so lucrative and effective: if you build it, they will come.
Many of those who are most vigorously agitating for campaign finance reform want a strong and centralized federal government that isn't influenced by interests that compete with their own. But you can't have your cake and eat it too: if that's what you order, it's coming with a side of corruption (and a mixed metaphor fresh out of the blender).
Well, here in the real world, there was a Citizen's United decision in 2009, and there was record-setting advertising spending from industry groups in 2010. In a midterm election.
Noone's claiming they have a perfect system, I'd be satisfied if we stopped sliding backwards.
What was wrong with the Citizen's United decision? What's wrong with high advertising spending?
Are you implying that voters are really so easily influenced by the mere volume as advertising that advertising alone is the overriding determinant of electoral success? If that's your point, isn't it actually an indictment of democracy itself?
This is the solution; a system level design that assumes a level of corruption and general stupidity, then feeds incentives to help the broad spectrum of society.
The goal is not better legislation; I agree term limits wouldn't do anything for that. The goal is to combat accumulation of power, which results in greater and greater corruption.
> not allowing those who have been born in fortuitous (and work ethic and abilities enhancing) circumstances to get so far ahead the less fortunate no longer have a chance to catch up.
I find this very troubling. Why should we prevent people from succeeding? I think rather than not allowing people to advance society would be better served by finding ways to help those behind advance. Also, why is it so important to catch up? Why cannot some do well and rise to the top while others do well (for their skill level) and not make it all the way to the top? What is so bad about that?
What this man is expressing is real. I can confirm it is real, because as a human I can feel many of the same things, as I read it. Whether he will die in 30 days or not, we don't know. And you can, of course, argue about that all day long. You might even be quite put out if he does not. But whether he is having these thoughts and feelings because he is about to die, or whether he is simply exploring these thoughts and feelings because he is a human (and facing death like us all), they are no less real. You may call one fiction because the man does not die on cue, but after reading it, I say it is not fake.