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Stop hitting that girl with your car!!!
Monday, 20 November 2006 20:00Subject 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.
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.
