Stop hitting that girl with your car!!!

[zachariah]

Subject line thanks to my girlfriend. I'm very curious as to what she would have said had I actually hit the girl. I suppose we'll find that out another day.

So I caught the trashcan on fire at work the other night. Oops? I'm told that's what I get for playing with matches. Personally, I just think that's what I get for throwing them away without dousing them yet. To be fair, I'd lit two matchbooks and blew them out before throwing them in a wastebasket full of....paper. D'oh. Plus side: I finally got to use the extinguisher! Bad side: dry chemicals swoosh up and choke everyone nearby. Hrm.

I think it's about time we discover another sentient, intelligent species. Something on par with humans. I think one of the troubles we have with intelligence is our only experience is with other humans. Look at Star Wars and Star Trek, the two most widely recognized multi-species fictions of this age. Nearly every intelligent species they portray are humanoid in appearance, thought and action. If we found a new type of clam or something in the ocean, one which communicates with chemical excretions over the course of months, we'd never recognize it as intelligent whether it was or not. It's too alien. We'll never recognize any computer system as intelligent, because it's too simple, in the sense that we'll have built it, and can explain the workings of its "thoughts". Our idea of what is "alive", "self-aware", and "intelligent" are so limited, I really do belive we're as likely to destroy (accidentally or otherwise) any such species we find (or are found by) as we are to recognize and communicate with one.

Comments

[echthroi.livejournal.com]

The coral fighters, yeah? I haven't heard/read anything about gravity control IRL, so color me skeptical. I like nanoids and cybernetics because it's not really that drastic a change from what we have today. I see it as a finer, more thorough extension of existing robotics/electronics. Not that there aren't problems to solve, or that fields of research need to be narrow. I'm happy for progress in any direction, really.

[lonelyfedora.livejournal.com]

No no, not the gravity control, that's just silly ;) (For now!)

I just mean, using organics as infrastructure instead of purely cybernetics.

[echthroi.livejournal.com]

You'll have to refresh my memory; I don't recall exactly how the interface worked. Your point about social stigma of technology applies to biotech as well, though. Look at the hullabaloo surrounded cloning, or stem cell research. One doesn't get much higher on the "This is a so very abstract moral concern." scale. People don't much like the "icky", much more than they dislike what is perceived as the colder science of electronics. Yes no maybe?

[lonelyfedora.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, there's huge social stigma... Even more, I'd say, than with cybernetics..

I think hacking biologicals has more potential, long term, than hacking the computer..

[echthroi.livejournal.com]

I remember a magazine article about future organic computers. At that point maybe we can all hack together in peace! ;)