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tcpipThe final session of the NZ E-Research Symposium at the University of Otaga has just finished. I presented a brief paper on teaching HPC to researchers before engaging in a practical example by running a couple of minor jobs on the BlueFern. As part of the conference dinner last night was spent at Lanarch Castle, complete with a haggis ceremony. A special meeting was held by the Dunedin Linux Users Group for my benefit; they had an excellent turnout for a city of its size and with animated conversation. Also managed to visit the Ravensbourne home, where we met the student tenants in person, who have proven to a very responsible and thoughtful group; they can stay there as long as they want as far as I'm concerned.
As usual I am impressed by so much about The South. We flew in via Christchurch and stayed at the deco City Motor Lodge which has survived the recent spate of earthquakes, unlike its neighbours. The poor city of ChCh has really suffered a great deal with large sections of the central city still closed to traffic, and red and yellow stickers adorning a multitude of buildings. The stern normalacy and occassional humour expressed by those who had an earthquake just a fortnight ago is typical of human resilience in a real disaster. The people complaining about their flights being delayed because of the Chilean ash cloud can just suck it up as far as I'm concerned; first-world problems.
Prior to the New Zealand flight I spoke twice on Sunday; the first was at the Humanity Plus Conference (after a gruelling but very impressive prior day where I presented with the title More Human Than Human: The Computation of Moral Reasoning where I argued that (a) computational capacity will not provide artificial intelligence, (b) the physics of consciousness are unknown and possibly unknowable and (c) that consciousnesses is linguistically mediated, is not rules-based, and requires moral (conscience) decision making. After that I walked to the local Unitarian Church and gave an address with the provocative title Unitarian-Universalism: The Only Religion for the Twenty-First Century where I combined two sides of my recent MBA studies (strategy and leadership) to suggest a necessary plan for growth and to counter fundamentalist religions.
As usual I am impressed by so much about The South. We flew in via Christchurch and stayed at the deco City Motor Lodge which has survived the recent spate of earthquakes, unlike its neighbours. The poor city of ChCh has really suffered a great deal with large sections of the central city still closed to traffic, and red and yellow stickers adorning a multitude of buildings. The stern normalacy and occassional humour expressed by those who had an earthquake just a fortnight ago is typical of human resilience in a real disaster. The people complaining about their flights being delayed because of the Chilean ash cloud can just suck it up as far as I'm concerned; first-world problems.
Prior to the New Zealand flight I spoke twice on Sunday; the first was at the Humanity Plus Conference (after a gruelling but very impressive prior day where I presented with the title More Human Than Human: The Computation of Moral Reasoning where I argued that (a) computational capacity will not provide artificial intelligence, (b) the physics of consciousness are unknown and possibly unknowable and (c) that consciousnesses is linguistically mediated, is not rules-based, and requires moral (conscience) decision making. After that I walked to the local Unitarian Church and gave an address with the provocative title Unitarian-Universalism: The Only Religion for the Twenty-First Century where I combined two sides of my recent MBA studies (strategy and leadership) to suggest a necessary plan for growth and to counter fundamentalist religions.
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no subject
Date: 2011-07-01 06:17 am (UTC)Which could be construed as an argument against humans and AIs ever understanding each other. ;p
no subject
Date: 2011-07-04 02:29 am (UTC)New symbolic values are, of course, a necessary but not sufficient requirement in my opinion for sapience, for resolving the "other minds" problem.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-04 02:36 am (UTC)Which is a combination synergistic systems including Probabilistic Logic Networks (whose terms have uncertain probabilities weighted by evidence), attention allocation, and pattern mining, all using locality of experience to make the processes not collapse in the face of combinatorial explosion.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-04 04:18 am (UTC)One of the very clever distinctions made by one of the camera people at the conference was that between "Artificial Intelligence" (which follows rules-based systems) and "Artificial Consciousness", which is more my angle of approach.
AI and Humans
Date: 2011-07-01 07:44 am (UTC)Communicating with something of similar "intelligence" to us, but alien, usch as AI, may be one of the biggest challenges to humanity.
Re: AI and Humans
Date: 2011-07-01 08:21 am (UTC)((Cue music Theme to "The Twilight Zone"...))
Re: AI and Humans
Date: 2011-07-04 02:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-04 02:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-04 11:24 pm (UTC)Interestingly I encountered a service by the minister of the Knox (Presbyterian) Church in Dunedin, which had virtually the same content that one would find from a UU theological perspective. It was quite a pleasant surprise.
As for the signs, they might be surreal, but certainly appropriate.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-05 12:21 am (UTC)However, they're smart folks who see people coming in to take photos in/around/of the building all the time; you require a permit which is a little over a hundred dollars. In return, you get sections of the building entirely to yourself.
The band still declined. I didn't say anything because they were the ones agreeing to pay any money required, so it was their decision. I did keep the business card in case I want to go there with a different group for the same purpose.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-05 02:02 am (UTC)http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1248/597939061_98f72c9bd7_o.jpg
Knox himself is a little more questionable; has become somewhat notorious after writing about how women shouldn't be allowed in government.
Still, have to say about the NZ Presbyterians, they're a studious and liberal lot. The one's in Dunedin in particular are quite good; they left Scotland because the Scottish church was too dogmatic and authoritarian. Looks like they've certainly kept to that tradition.