11–20 of 68 posts
What does the word "consciousness" mean in that sentence, and why are the simplest of life forms excluded? What test do we apply that all organisms pass, except for the simplest life forms, which fail?
Do smartphones "die" when they run out of battery or is that merely "sleep" for them? RAM needs power, but ROM is preserved so ... amnesia? Comma? I'm never letting my phone battery drain again.
There's not really a better analog in biology. Even in the case of sexual reproduction, the new life carries tons of epigenetic state across the creation boundary, and is more akin to fork(2) than exec(2).
A ceasing of operations and erasure of all current state seems more like death to me.
Do smartphones "die" when they run out of battery or is that merely "sleep" for them? RAM needs power, but ROM is preserved so ... amnesia? Comma? I'm never letting my phone battery drain again.
That structure resembles our brain: a reactive, resilient, shifting network of connections among billions of individual human brains using smartphones and other technological devices, storing, aggregating and routing information in complex and arbitrary ways. If consciousness is to be found in our technology, I wouldn't look at the individual smartphone, but at the network of all smartphones.
What is it like to be the Internet? That structure resembles our brain: a reactive, resilient, shifting network of connections among billions of individual human brains using smartphones and other technological devices, storing, aggregating and routing information in complex and arbitrary ways. If consciousness is to be found in our technology, I wouldn't look at the individual smartphone, but at the network of all s…
Only tangentially related... the podcast "Everything is Alive" is really enjoyable. The host interviews a variety of everyday objects: a can of soda, a magic eight ball, a towel, a song, etc.
The first episode, "Louis, Can of Cola", is my favorite.
Do smartphones "die" when they run out of battery or is that merely "sleep" for them? RAM needs power, but ROM is preserved so ... amnesia? Comma? I'm never letting my phone battery drain again.
I'd say they die. There's not really a better analog in biology. Even in the case of sexual reproduction, the new life carries tons of epigenetic state across the creation boundary, and is more akin to fork(2) than exec(2). A ceasing of operations and erasure of all current state seems more like death to me.
but some state is preserved in non-volatile memory.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd say they die. There's not really a better analog in biology. Even in the case of sexual reproduction, the new life carries tons of epigenetic state across the creation boundary, and is more akin to fork(2) than exec(2). A ceasing of operations and erasure of all current state seems more like death to me.
>A ceasing of operations and erasure of all current state seems more like death to me. but some state is preserved in non-volatile memory.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>A ceasing of operations and erasure of all current state seems more like death to me. but some state is preserved in non-volatile memory.
And when you die, your DNA can still be sequenced.