/sci/ - Science & Math

>>4343344

The food chain is a rather simplistic way of view things, yes. A food pyramid is a more accurate concept, with a handful of apex predators at the top requiring the support of a considerably larger number of prey items at each step down.

>>4343328

Some people just like classifying things. Some questions have no purpose beyond simply providing a recorded/recordable answer. Personally, I don't think it matters, but any talk of superiority/inferiority needs to have it pointed out that a criterion is necessary. Superiority isn't an innate quality, it's a measure of a specific trait.

The reason I answered the food chain one, if you're curious, is because it provides an example of what I mean. Humanity is higher on the food chain than other animals.

>>4343316

You look at what animals prey upon the creature in question, versus how many it preys upon. This must include a degree of regularity, too, since random flukes (a few people getting mauled by tigers each year out of several billion humans alive today) do not indicate regular predation.

Humans are at the top of the macroscopic food chain, in that regard. We eat just about everything, and nothing eats us with any degree of regularity (on a scale comparable to that found in other animals which are preyed upon in the natural kingdom).

So, yes. Using this model, humans are the superior species in the food chain.

To define something as superior, you need to define the criterion you are judging.

To define a morality, you need to define criteria for good and evil. There is, however, no good molecule, no evil atom, no distilled beaker of morality for us to examine. The only physical component to morality is the neurons the idea is stored on in our heads.

The only science there can be in morality is determining how to make certain outcomes more frequent, accomplish certain goals, and so-on; the method of application, the pointing out of inconsistencies, but not the definitions.

But this is a troll thread so, y'know, you knew that already.

>>3893252

First of all, people knew the Earth was round as far back as 500 BC, possibly earlier.

As for the knowledge we have now, in some ways yes, in some ways no. A better comparison might be comparing our knowledge of physics/chemistry/biology now with our knowledge of it in the mid-1700s and early 1800s. We'll learn a lot more, and a lot of our presumptions might change, but the actual knowledge we have is likely correct, at least in most areas.

>>3876991

Malthus, a guy who predicted the same doom and gloom you did, two centuries ago, if I recall correctly.

He predicted that, because food production increased in a linear fashion, while population growth was exponential, the world would soon starve itself to death.

As it turns out, he was exceptionally wrong. As technology improved, more and more food could be extracted from less and less land. The same kinds of developments continue today, and not just in the areas of food use. As we use a given material more and more, the efficiency with which we use it increases. As needs arise, solutions appear.

The future has its bumps, sure, but doomsayers have spoken out about resource scarcity all the time. You're free to be pessimistic if you like, but I'm gonna hold out hope.

>>3876881

Malthus called, he asked you to stop ripping off his ideas.

Frankly, I think we live in a fuck-awesome time. I've got electricity, a warm, dry home, good food, clean water, and a transportation system my ancestors couldn't dream of. I can access information from around the world and throughout history, I can communicate with people anywhere, and I have a device I keep in my pocket that can provide me with detailed directions, information access, and general record keeping/personal assisting anytime, anywhere.

If I get a cut and it gets infected, I take antibiotics, instead of getting gangrene. If I get a disease, I can have not one machine but several provide high-detail images of the inside of my body without a surgeon having to cut me open. I can expect not to live 20 or 40 but 80 years, likely much more.

We have cars that drive themselves; robots that can recognize phrases and learn from plain English instructions; we have harnessed the atom and can make it our bitch to provide ourselves with heat, light, and more.

We live in a future that is unlike what most people in human history could even dream of, and that's just the technology side of it.

Life is good for me, and I'm very thankful for it.

>>3876888

The term creator tends to refer to an entity; an intelligent, thinking thing. We might say that a volcanic eruption created a new coastline on an island, but we would never refer to the volcano as a creator.

English is a sticky language, like that.

>>3876722

No-one really knows the answer to this. It's a big question. We should, logically, see as much anti-matter as matter, but, of course, we don't.

So where did it all go? Are there anti-galaxies out there firing out anti-photons at us? No-one really knows.

One of the last deliveries to the ISS via the space-shuttle was an enormous magnet (fucking miracles) that is going to be used as a part of an experiment to try and detect antimatter particles that might indicate the presence of some of this missing antimatter.

No matter what the answer, it's an interesting question.

>>3767285

The post I was referencing actually says "greatest good for the greatest number". Honestly...

Also, pure democracy is mob rule. Constitutional democracies or republics are the unification of large groups of people towards a larger goal (protection being the most notable but also including many others, like providing education, contract enforcement, etc.), while still respecting the rights of the individual.

Pure democracy isn't for the greater good, it's just anarchy, pure and simple. It has no tenets beyond the will of the people at any given moment and whatever threat said people can bring to bear against those who disagree.

>>3767231

>it's the basis for democracy.

No. No it isn't.

Also, it's rather disturbing to see what people can justify with "the greater good". Such an ambiguous term as a moral imperative is rather horrifying.

>>3747461

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnzlbyTZsQY

I'm not a robot, I am a unicorn.

>>3747277

If you wanted to make an efficient brain simulator, then, yes, we lack the understanding. If you want to make an accurate (or just easy) one, what we lack is the hardware.

Theoretically, if we could simulate the trillions of atoms in each cell, and simulate the hundreds of billions of neurons, glial cells, etc., then we could simulate a brain perfectly without knowing all that much about how the brain works. We could just serial section it, or even "grow" a human inside a computer.

The amount of processing power here is insane, of course. We're talking about more processing power than has ever existed. However, it's technically true.

Hmmm... There's a thought: If you simulated a human inside a computer, they'd still age and suffer senility. That makes the need to model the brain more in terms of processes than literally very interesting...

Simple answer to the OP:

We currently lack the technology.

Lunch, anyone?

>>3726930

.... So, never?

More seriously, though, people are working on it.

>>3628764

Biology's large-scale chemistry. Chemistry is large-scale physics.

>>3608250

Again, the fact that there is a "YOU" to refer to here shows the problem.

>>3608278

The Ship of Theseus is not a person; it has no consciousness (and, again, I'll say "as far as we can tell"). The problem is thus made no longer subjective. Either the original consciousness is there, or it isn't. We just don't have a means to detect it.

>>3608181

Fine. Outside of mathematics.

>>3607994

Can't prove a negative. You made the assertion.

>>3608011

It's not really a matter of interpretation. I exist, you exist, we all exist. I'm not positing anything beyond the existence of this "thing" that is consciousness. I make no statements about its properties.

The fact that you are even asking the question "[w]hether the thing that is doing the thinking today is the same as the thing that is doing the thinking yesterday" shows that there is something here that is causing the question to arise to begin with.

You can become a cyborg now, although I'd not really recommend it. The tech is still behind replacing capacity, yet alone exceeding it. I imagine that'll change in about 5-10 years, though, given that we've gone from "steel rod and crutches" to "computer-assisted replacement systems" in about the same time.

Immortality? Well, immortality is defined by simply not dying. Even if your longevity could be extended indefinitely, there's always the possibility of you dying (such as being caught in a supernova). Just eat right and stay healthy and, who knows, you might just live long enough to see the super-longevity tech come to fruition.

>>3607882

There is, though. The words bandied about for it (consciousness, soul, continuity, perspective, ghost, etc.) all mean the same thing; the thing that is quintessentially you. We have yet to narrow down what exactly it is, since it's hard to quantify, but we all know it's there (unless you wanna get into p-zombie territory) because we ARE it.

The correct answer lies with this; our ability to preserve and transfer it, if we can even narrow down what it is to begin with to begin with.

That is the objective answer. We just don't have the knowledge to be able to give it yet, and we might never.

I imagine they'd explode. Their structures just aren't equipped to handle the macro-scale.

The point isn't to take a picture, then copy that over. That's not what the OP is asking and would not transfer the consciousness (as far as we can tell, at least).

The idea is to transfer more slowly, so that, say, you're copying a brain-state from one to the other, piecemeal, with them remaining in communication.

So, the magical nanotech you'd need for this procedure is observing and disabling one neuron at a time, and, at the same time, a copy of that neuron is created (whether digitally or on another brain) and a signal is sent back and forth between the nanobots in each brain. As this happens more and more, the one consciousness is half-running on one brain, half on the other, until, eventually, the last neuron is deactivated in one brain and is online in the other.

In doing so, the person involved would experience a gradual shift from one body to another. The question is, would it be the same consciousness?