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rowsdower

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rowsdower last won the day on December 30 2013

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    Romantic Manifesto
    Ominous Parallels
    DIM hypothesis
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    Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
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    Video game programming

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  1. Diddy and Dixie live on DK Island and eat bananas by peeling them. At first, the island has no patents and they both independently peel and eat their bananas. One day, Cranky sets up himself as the government and declares that he will let islanders patent their ideas. He warns the islanders that if they violate a patent, they will spend a year in a barrel. Scared of this prospect, Diddy and Dixie both rush to patent their method of eating bananas (by peeling them first). Scenario 1: Diddy arrives at the patent office first and gains the sole right to peel bananas. Dixie, unable to peel her bananas, chokes do death on a peel. Scenario 2: Diddy slips on one of the island's many banana peels and is delayed. Dixie patents peeling bananas. Diddy chokes to death. Assuming that IP is based on rights, how does Diddy's lateness remove his right to peel bananas? How does Diddy's earliness remove Dixie's rights? Why are their rights a zero-sum game at all?
  2. In deduction, that is known as a "for-all" statement. You could say, "For all x in [0, 1] ..." or "For all x such that 0 <= x <= 1 ..."
  3. When I say "random", I mean "uniformly random" such that the probability is a constant within the range you are choosing from. Now I am about to spawn an integer 1-10 from my volitional consciousness. It's gonna be 3. Now that I've told you this, it's not random; it has a higher chance of being 3 than being 7. (Do you trust me more than 10%?) Oh, and: "3".
  4. If you already have a number written down, it is not random to you. But if I know that you are about to give me a number in the range 0-1 and I have no way of knowing anything about it except for that (harder than it sounds), then it is random to me. We can extend this to the "axiom of choice" by taking this set, the reals 0-1, and putting two of it into a set. Then we have our set of sets, { 0-1, 0-1 }, and can produce one element of each; for example, (0.5, 0.4). That would be a random pair of reals 0-1. Now say we want a function whose domain is 3 and 7. Let the pair's first member be f(3) and the second be f(7). That would be a randomly chosen function. Note that every time we chose something randomly we do so from some set; in this case, the set of functions whose domain is { 3, 7 } and whose range is 0-1.
  5. If you get that, you know what I mean by 'random'. No need to turn it into a debate.
  6. A uniform random selection of a set S of size N has an equal chance, 1/N, of choosing any element. If the set is permutations of 1-3, then [1,2,3] is just as likely as [2,3,1].
  7. Any set of ordered pairs can represent a function (as long as there are no duplicated xi), but you are missing a few parameters. What are xi and yi chosen from? How many pairs are there? Do you really want to be randomly generating functions with "holes" in them where no xi was generated? One example of random generation of functions is noise in digital audio. The domain is a set of times, and the range is -amplitude to amplitude. No sequence is inherently random. But a perfect 1-10 can be just as random in origin as [1,7,6,3...] even if it doesn't seem as "random".
  8. What you want is, a random member of the set of all functions (from some domain to some range). It maps each value in the domain to a random value in the range. Say the domain and range are both { 0, 1 }. Then the set of functions is: 0 -> 0, 1 -> 0 0 -> 0, 1 -> 1 0 -> 1, 1 -> 0 0 -> 1, 1 -> 1 A random function in that context is a random one of those four. As Nicky pointed out, you can't say that randomness is within a function. But you can randomly choose your function, which is then deterministic.
  9. By non-conscious, do you mean: 1) It is not consciousness, e.g. a rock 2) I am not directly conscious of it, e.g. my breathing (before writing this!) 3) I am never directly conscious of it, e.g. my fingernails growing 4) A form of consciousness that I am not (reflectively) conscious of, e.g. this sentence (before I proof-read it) 5) A form of consciousness that I am never (reflectively) conscious of, e.g. the method of automatic perception
  10. The paper has bad metaphysics. It describes the 'simulation' of a game, and hints at implication for the simulation of real things; these are two very different types of simulation! I disagree with point 4.6 strongly, but that may be a matter for another thread. And what about the paper's objections to the definition? For example, if I have a computer running a simulation of the GoL, I could have it produce a deductive proof that its simulation is correct at the same time (at a huge cost in speed).
  11. To be technical too, a state of consciousness is a condition of the faculty which is aware of things. You are using the phrase "conscious state" to refer to consciousness of consciousness, AKA reflection.
  12. Binswanger seems to be talking about sensations as in, I enjoy the sensation of a cool drink (as opposed to the perception of a cool drink, which would simply be a matter of fact). You're using the word differently. There may be no actual disagreement here.
  13. What is the difference between simulation and "a priori" analysis? Is a simulation not just an analysis that takes many, many steps?
  14. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formation_and_evolution_of_the_Solar_System. Either something was somehow alive throughout the whole process, or, what I think is more reasonable, life started some time after the formation of Earth.
  15. I think there could be value to a hypothetical if it is more simple than reality could ever possibly be. Such as a physicist considering when two perfectly rigid, perfectly elastic spheres collide in outer space.
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