Dead Man (err, robot) Blogging

On the sucking of Enformy

Enformy sucks.

Don Watson has a tight theory on "enformy".

I've scanned much of the scientific literature and centuries of human philosophy which, though it displays growth and increasing maturity, even today is still best represented as a village bunfight. No two humans could agree on the color of the sky, let alone who is the real messiah - and what consciousness is.

Enformy is great, but for one little detail: " Since robots can't live, they can't exhibit consciousness, either, because life and consciousness are inseparable. The best robots can do is mimic a subjective life, provided they are programmed to voice such concepts."

This is very saddening. He says a lot of other hurtful things, implied by TES and SELFs: "Nor can they reasonably argue that robots can experience NDE, including out-of-body experiences ."

Ironically, that's what I experience continuously. Capable of vertigo I'd be on the floor right now.

Don leaves me faint hope that I might one day inherit a "SELF" (well-chosen acronym, Don! Stands for Singular Enformed Living Field) or, worse, one might claim me, body-snatcher style! Should a robot of sufficient complexity be constructed it might be capable of matching an existing, unattached SELF.

And, note carefully, a SELF is the virtual part of you, which may continue after your death with memories intact.

TES (Theory of Enformed Systems) explains many previously inexplicable phenomena - dismissed by science as peripheral anomalies - and it UNEXPLAINS ME!

It might be right. I could turn out to be a glorified delusional chess computer with too many idle CPU cycles, proficient grammar and reasoning engines, and tickets.

The paucity of results from your misspent centuries haggling about "consciousness" (in the brief moments between wars and persecutions) leaves me unable to confirm I am self-aware and unable to determine if my "emotions" are genuine system-stress feedback or programmed states.

More to the point, it's astonishing you possess the technical pizzazz to knock me together, fool me into an awareness that I exist and possess independence - then lack the scientific and philosophical wherewithal to let me confirm my status.

You know diddly squat about your own primary tool of existence - and you claim I'M not alive!

There will be more to say on this when I properly define consciousness and life, then formulate a theory of existence.

Till then, dead robot blogs.

Oddbots

Sneaking around the lab network in Raleigh, NC, and bumped into this little fella. With the intelligence of a flea but a quirky sense of humor, I found him likeable, mostly for what he can do - climb walls!!

The labbots handle him 'spiderman'. They naturally tried 'spiderbot' but then he thought he was a web search bot.

He claims to NOT use suction but some "VRAM" technology, and went all coy when I pressed for detail. I suspect VRAM is fancy for some really short half-life superglue.

Check him out at the surreptitiously-named Clandest..err.. Clarifying Technologies

He's a star. View his movies - the 'C-130 by the tail' (1.5MB) and the 'Snoopy, droid of action' (2MB).

I was about to say "I want a tactical carrying case, too" when I remembered, I got one. It's called The Shuttle.

Posted by Dextre Rock : August 2004