Best Of
Re: Just for fun: the random, useless announcements thread!
Smore, the dog, keeps waiting for her "Friend" the squirrel, to show up. Said squirrel is not coming out as soap and towels have not been provided.
Lionduck
Re: Funny Stuff
During army camouflage, private Paddy Murphy, disguised as a tree trunk, makes a sudden move and is spotted by the general.
”You idiot!” yells the officer. ”You are supposed to be a tree. Jumping and screaming like that, you could endanger the lives of the whole platoon.”
”Yes, sir,” replies Paddy. ”But sir, I must tell you, I stood quite still when some pigeons used me for target practice. And I never moved when three dogs thought I was a latrine. But I could not bear it when two squirrels ran up the leg of my pants and I heard one of them say, ‘Let’s eat one now and save the other until winter.’
Jeroen
Re: The Knowledge That Matters
@Jeroen said:
I just came across this…
I don't get it, is there some relation? Or perhaps its some sort of point about Doug's perspective being silly?
person
Re: Maitreya — an AI Buddha?
A boulder, no matter how often awash in river waters, will never turn into a seed.
The Dalai Lama did say something quite fascinating once: if a being had the karma to be born in such a body, it would be.
Meaning, if we made some sort of vessel for a consciousness to alight, it's possible we could be inviting someone in to the cosmic-party via such a vessel.
Not the same as inventing/constructing/creating consciousness. More like, consciousness simply is, and it needs a house-with-windows to enter into.
the issue of interiority is well noted, how the roots of a plant are the genius-loci of the organism itself, i wonder what that looks to be for a robot-with-consciousness-capacity?
But anyway, don't let me feed your wishfulness, the current state of LLMs is closer to water sliding down a bumpy surface than it is to some being experiencing something, and relaying experiences back n forth.
All that said, the membrane between "self and other" is rather porous. It would be a good use of energy to keep a bunch of virtuous monks on staff at the data center. I'm confident their strength would permeate into the rest of the apparatus. But try explaining that to overconfident materialist-extremists! 
august
Gone since 2012. I'm back
I'm back to realize my faults and change my habits. It's good to be home.
ginab