/sci/ - Science & Math

>>2729536
how can it be indeterminate when it has been clearly established multiple times that 1/0=infinity.

>>2729465
shh, im pissing off idiots who didnt notice i brought up "divide by zero" to derail the thread.

>>2729491
1/0=infinity=2/0

1/0=2/0

1=2

derpdederp, look at me be a huge faggot.

>>2729437
but dont you understand limits?

in y=1/x, as x approaches zero, y approaches infinity.

therefore, 1/0 = infinity.

lrn2math.

>>2729403

you are such a gigantic faggot.

read:
>>2729325

this person is infinitely more intelligent than you. (because im going to be a troll and say divide by zero = infinity)

>>2726469
i am not entirely sure how your course structure works, as it varies from university to university.

stuff like evolution and abiogenesis should be covered in first year bio courses.

when i did my medsci bachelors, it was compulsory for everyone at the university i attended to take both chemistry and biology in the first year, and biochemistry and microbiology in the second, if you were doing ANY science degree offered by the university.

we also had a total of 12 units of electives we could take, and they could be whatever we wanted them to be, as long as they were of a sufficiently high level and we met the pre-reqs.

imo, a chem degree isnt complete without some form of bio in it. check your course structure and tailor it to your liking.

>>2726380
thats a good question. textbooks should be your ideal go-to source for information, but they are insanely boring to read. while i can put up with it, i dont expect others to.

ironically, i dont know of any good non-scientific books about biology, but i can pont you in the right direction.

go here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/UCBerkeley

U.C. Berkeley was kind enough to upload entire series of lectures covering a variety of subjects.

i strongly urge you to watch them all. having a good base knowledge of many areas of science will give you a completely new outlook on life.

>>2726338
biology is certainly fascinating.

never to late to learn though. just be careful, as there is a lot of simplification to help people understand.

>>2726139
i would like to go through some of the points in your posts, but due to other people responding, balancing the two will be difficult.

there is a GREAT video explaining abiogenesis here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6QYDdgP9eg&feature=channel_video_title

in fact, his entire series of "origin of x" provides a decent summation of events.

let me know if anything in particular gives you trouble though.

>>2726197
i believe, after reading this response, you might have misunderstood what i WAS saying.

>1) your analogy is flawed, because the computer isn't truly adapting, and

this is actually the point i was making. the computer is not sentient. the process of direct manipulation of a program is as far removed from evolution as you can get.

the computer in my analogy would not be sentient, yet it would APPEAR to be on the surface. that is the one and only point i was trying to make in my post.

2) the word "simulation" is frankly derogatory, it's reacting according to the demands of its environment.

i believe you are trying to say it uses the "stimulus and response" to produce answers. and this is my point. a sufficiently complex program can appear to be sentient, much in the same way watson does. however, that does not mean it IS sentient.

computers may very well be sentient one day, but as pointed out, testing their responses to questions and statements etc. is not actually a viable way of testing for it.

>I believe that program would lack self-awareness

this is what i was actually saying all along...

>and it would lack the ability to spontaneously mutate

this is a given.

>>2726146
holy shit, i am not going to type up the 15 million different things wrong with that analogy.

the most blaringly obvious, is that evolution has no end goal.

it doesnt modify itself purposefully.

i mean, wow...

>>2726140
and why are you continuing?

also, there are a number of oversimplifications in there.

>>2726139
why are you posting a short summary of abiogenesis?

>>2726114
>ignores every post in thread
>makes baseless assertion without any evidence

cool story bro.

>>2726100
by the way, just so you are clear:

"Humans are absolutely no different. But the "programming" has been done by evolution."

this is the original argument made against what i said. you are going to defend this nonsense?

how humans developed sentience, and how we programs computers are two vastly, vastly different things.

>>2726100
read:

"if you think, in ANY way, that that is how evolution works, then you are beyond contempt.

simpletons half-understanding evolution and trying to apply it where it doesnt belong are the reason the public doesnt understand it."

this is all i was saying.

you want to go down "humans are robots too", im not going to stop you.

>>2726071
yeah, its really funny.

some idiot thinks that the analogy i made is the SAME as evolution.

read:
>>2725975

if you think, in ANY way, that that is how evolution works, then you are beyond contempt.

simpletons half-understanding evolution and trying to apply it where it doesnt belong are the reason the public doesnt understand it.

>>2726074
i said comaring the METHODS was retarded, not the result.

read what i was replying to.

>>2726064
but you cannot compare the two.

how the two are established come from very different methods.

now how about we get back on track.

>>2726038
entirely wrong.

lrn2biology.

evolution is a complex concept, and comparing it to manual programming of computers is simply retarded.

only a troll would compare the two.

>>2726022
only on a more complex scale. in essence, while computers work on a binary system (0,1), human brains operate on the order of THOUSANDS, and the variations of how many and which ones are firing.

comparing the two is silly.

>>2725991
that is such a horrible, horrible strawman.

you obviously do not understand how evolution works.

>>2725996
if you believe that, then you should go die in a fire.

>>2725979
>Then we need to devise very good tests.

agreed. this is what i have been saying all along.

all the chinese room argument shows is that stimulus and response tests are NOT an indicator for true sentience.

a complex predictive program will be sufficient into fooling people that it is actually aware, when it is not.

as for the modern processors, i know that computers are more complex than just "ones and zeros" and that it is a horrible strawman, but it makes the point that computers arent as complex as the brain.

besides, the true/false system is not used by the brain. computers use an expansion of true/false to generate programs, whereas the brain uses many connections that all have to work together in order to make a single neuron fire and continue the signal.

>>2725949
example:

i build a computer that responds to sentences with a sentence of its own, from a database of sentences i put in it.

its a shit program though, and you quickly show me that argument x shows that the computer is not actually intelligent.

i write sentences for it to use when shown argument x.

now you say argument y shows it is not intelligent.

i make another. and another. i continue making responses for it to use until you cannot find an argument that makes it give an answer that shows that it is not intelligent.

now, no matter what you ask, you will get an intelligent response, as if it was actually aware.

you say "are you alive", it says "yes, and i am scared of dying" adn all kinds of other shit.

question: is this computer now actually sentient?

NO. it appears to be, but it is not.