Dream Police

Q. What is artificial intelligence? ... ... A. It is the science and engineering of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer programs. It is related to the similar task of using computers to understand human intelligence, but AI does not have to confine itself to methods that are biologically observable. ... ... Q. Yes, but what is intelligence? ... ... A. Intelligence is the computational part of the ability to achieve goals in the world. Varying kinds and degrees of intelligence occur in people, many animals and some machines. ... ... Q. Isn't there a solid definition of intelligence that doesn't depend on relating it to human intelligence? ... ... A. Not yet. The problem is that we cannot yet characterize in general what kinds of computational procedures we want to call intelligent. We understand some of the mechanisms of intelligence and not others. ... ... Q. Is intelligence a single thing so that one can ask a yes or no question ....Is this machine intelligent or not?''? ... ... A. No. Intelligence involves mechanisms, and AI research has discovered how to make computers carry out some of them and not others. If doing a task requires only mechanisms that are well understood today, computer programs can give very impressive performances on these tasks. Such programs should be considered ....somewhat intelligent''. ... ... Q. Isn't AI about simulating human intelligence? ... ... A. Sometimes but not always or even usually. On the one hand, we can learn something about how to make machines solve problems by observing other people or just by observing our own methods. On the other hand, most work in AI involves studying the problems the world presents to intelligence rather than studying people or animals. AI researchers are free to use methods that are not observed in people or that involve much more computing than people can do. ... ... Q. What about IQ? Do computer programs have IQs? ... ... A. No. IQ is based on the rates at which intelligence develops in children. It is the ratio of the age at which a child normally makes a certain score to the child's age. The scale is extended to adults in a suitable way. IQ correlates well with various measures of success or failure in life, but making computers that can score high on IQ tests would be weakly correlated with their usefulness. For example, the ability of a child to repeat back a long sequence of digits correlates well with other intellectual abilities, perhaps because it measures how much information the child can compute with at once. However, ....digit span'' is trivial for even extremely limited computers. ... ... However, some of the problems on IQ tests are useful challenges for AI. ... ... Remote viewing is the purported ability for a viewer to gather information on a remote target consisting of an object, place, or person, etc., that is hidden from the physical perception of the viewer and typically separated from the viewer at some distance or time. ... ... The Parapsychological Association describes it as a form of extra-sensory perception, usually attempted during experiments in which the percipient tries to describe a distant location or the environs of a distant agent. ... ... The Analysis of The Stigmata ... ... To decide merely the facts without deciding whether or not they may be explained by supernatural causes, history tells us that many ecstatics bear on hands, feet, side, or brow the marks of the Passion of Christ with corresponding and intense sufferings. ... ... These are called visible stigmata. ... ... Others only have the sufferings, without any outward marks, and these phenomena are called invisible stigmata. ... ... I shall not attempt to solve this question. Physiological science does not appear to be far enough advanced to admit a definite solution, and I adopt the intermediate position, which seems to be unassailable, that of showing that the arguments in favor of natural explanations are illusory. ... ... They are sometimes arbitrary hypotheses, being equivalent to mere assertions, sometimes arguments based on exaggerated or misinterpreted facts. But if the progress of medical sciences and psycho-physiology should present serious objections, it must be remembered that neither religion or mysticism is dependent on the solution of these questions, and that in processes of canonization, stigmata do not count as incontestable miracles. ... ... On The Verge Of Safely Cloning A Human: ... ... Genes are strings of chemicals that help create the proteins that make up your body. Genes are found in long coiled chains called chromosomes. They are located in the nuclei of the cells in your body. ... ... In sexual reproduction a child gets half its genes from its mother (in her egg) and half from its father (in his sperm). ... ... Cloning is an asexual form of reproduction. All the child's genes would come from a body cell of a single individual. ... ... Who is the clonal child's genetic mother or father? As we understand those terms, a clonal child wouldn't have a genetic mother or father, it would have a single 'nuclear donor.' If a man cloned himself, would the child be that man's son or his twin brother? It would be neither, it would be a new category of biological relationship: his clone. ... ... Reproductive cloning uses the cloning procedure to produce a clonal embryo which is implanted in a woman's womb with intent to create a fully formed living child, a clone. ... ... Therapeutic cloning uses the cloning procedure to produce a clonal embryo, but instead of being implanted in a womb and brought to term it is used to generate stem cells. ... ... The purpose of using clonal embryos to generate stem cells is to allow creation of tissues or organs that the clonal donor can use without having these tissues or organs rejected by their body's immune system. ... ... Most people oppose reproductive cloning. Some people oppose reproductive cloning but support therapeutic cloning. Others oppose therapeutic cloning as well as reproductive cloning, either because they are opposed to the destruction of embryos as a matter of principle, or because they feel the acceptance of therapeutic cloning will set us on a slippery slope to the acceptance of reproductive cloning and human genetic manipulation. ... ... It is possible to support stem cell research and still oppose research involving therapeutic cloning ... ... Time travel is the concept of moving between different moments in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space, either sending objects (or in some cases just information) backwards in time to a moment before the present, or sending objects forward from the present to the future without the need to experience the intervening period. ... ... Some interpretations of time travel also suggest that traveling backwards in time might take one to a parallel universe whose history could begin to diverge from the traveler's original history after the moment the traveler arrived in the past. ... ... Although time travel has been a common plot device in fiction since the late 1800's, and one-way travel into the future is arguably possible given the phenomenon of time dilation based on velocity in the theory of special relativity, exemplified by the twin paradox, as well as gravitational time dilation in the theory of general relativity, it is now known that the laws of physics will allow backwards time travel. ... ... Any device,that is used to achieve two-way time travel shall be referred to as a time machine.Home | Browse | Search | Invite | Film | Mail | Blog | Favorites | Forum | Groups | Events | Videos | Music | Comedy | Classifieds