This is how it starts...

[Satya]

We have now simulateda cat's brain.Human brains are next, by about 2020.

[Brian]

Well this just kills the whole captcha thing now doesn't it?

[jotabe]

Hehehe this is pretty cool
Just guessing here: i assume that the "emulated cat brain" is a lot slower than an actual cat brain, since the emulating hardware is quite less powerful than the emulated one. In any case, it's an outstanding breakthrough to understand how brains work.

The universe understanding itself...

*small poke at satya*
This is why you want copyright and patent laws to be by-passable: if our brain was protected like that, we wouldn't be allowed to reverse-engineer it (which is the best way to create an emulation) because God's lawyers would be on our derrieres.

[Satya]

Well, He created it, but as with current copyright and patent laws, there is a time constraint. Beethoven and Tolstoy's art, for example. I think more than enough time has passed since human creation.

And I'm more interested in transferring myself into more permanent hardware anyways.

[jotabe]

But what if God pulls that thing that millions of years are like a day for him? Old man has everything covered, i tell ya!

For me, what's really interesting is what it might tell us about ourselves, about our nature. Seeing how our brain makeup determines us. Researching mental illnesses, sociopathies, giftedness, and guiding us on how to improve our brain. The possibilities are endless.

I wonder, though, if a simulated human being should be treated as an actual human. He would be human from most points of view, except having a physical body. And that "his" reality would be whatever data we would feed "him".

[Satya]

True... Our "reality" is only the data our senses provide.

[Bean_wannabe]

How do you know that you're not a simulated brain?

[jotabe]

That's the thing... we can't know that we aren't simulated.

God could well be simulating a universe run before he actually creates it. But being conscious of our own consciousness, how could anyone say that we are not actual beings, that we are not real, even if we are just simulated?

I seriously need to stop talking about this as if i was high XD

[Satya]

Yeah - you should actually get high and talk about it.

No, seriously. That's a question that came up in my mind when I was watching the recent Leonid meteor shower. I had the perfect spot - a walked over to a little park in my rural little town. It was so pitch black I had to stumble around to the find the benches. I laid face up flat on my back and stared up into a perfectly clear night. It was awesome. But anyways... It kinda made me think of just how small, microscopic really we are. And then I started thinking of the "emptiness" of everything - from the huge scales of the emptiness of space to the tiny scales of the emptiness of matter on an atomic scale. Just how ludicrous is it that anything exists, really? I mean, sure, we have theories about the origins of the universe - the Big Bang and Divine Creation - but either way, it's absolutely crazy that we not only have "things" - objects, matter, energy, etc - but that this universe behaves in predictable patterns, acts according to laws, and that it would develop as it has in such a way that life - not just primitive life, but conscious life - should come about. Self aware beings have come into existance from a state of absolute nothingness... Amazing.

[Jebus]

You are freaking messing with my mind.

Our existence is as unfathomable as it was inevitable. But ultimately we're nothing more than mildew growing in a shower.

[jotabe]

Oh no, i disagree.
We are a lot more than humidity moss. We are humidity moss that can know itself, that can know the universe... that can change the universe.

With a little bit of luck, moss that can create more universes.

Not just any mildew

[Satya]

We are humidity moss that can know itself, and kill itself, and kill its fellow humidity moss, and possibly end all humidity moss life.

But I get the point.

[Satya]

By the way, Kirby always looks like he's cheering for whatever you post.

[jotabe]

I know, i like the effect
It contribute to make my posts look harmless and not to be taken overly seriously... which is something i like.
Besides, he's cool and cute XD So is Orihime, lol

About the moss analogy, even if we can, and do treat each other cruelly... it's just amazing that we are able to... unlike the moss, which just stands there. Because we are also able to treat each other kindly. It's as Peter the Hegemon said (as we are an Ender's Game fan forum).

[Toon Leader]

As Carl Sagan pointed out in Cosmos, the atoms in your body are directly traceable to phenomena in the cosmos. We are the Cosmos. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.