Fogbow

"Sentience is the next phase of universal organisation. First came primitive stars to turn simple molecules into complex ones, then came more complex stars with planetary systems, then came life, and finally sentience — first in primitive organic form, then advanced synthetic form." - Joel Shepherd

Edit: And I suppose the next question would be, among a race of sentient machines, what religion would they practice?

Foggy wrote: ↑Mon Jun 20, 2022 11:19 am

"Sentience is the next phase of universal organisation. First came primitive stars to turn simple molecules into complex ones, then came more complex stars with planetary systems, then came life, and finally sentience — first in primitive organic form, then advanced synthetic form." - Joel Shepherd

In other words, there's a higher level of sentience than our pitiful and primitive "organic" sentience, and that's ... the sentience of machines.

Which, as you know, there are many thousands of sentient organic beings right here on this planet who are working feverishly to develop artificial intelligence, also known as machine-based sentience.

So when we do find intelligent life on other planets, it may be a race - or a group of races - of fully sentient machines, whose intelligence might eclipse ours in unknown ways. And since they don't reproduce organically, there might could be a lot more of them than there are of us.

Foggy wrote: ↑Mon Jun 20, 2022 11:19 am

"Sentience is the next phase of universal organisation. First came primitive stars to turn simple molecules into complex ones, then came more complex stars with planetary systems, then came life, and finally sentience — first in primitive organic form, then advanced synthetic form." - Joel Shepherd

► Show Spoiler

In other words, there's a higher level of sentience than our pitiful and primitive "organic" sentience, and that's ... the sentience of machines.

Which, as you know, there are many thousands of sentient organic beings right here on this planet who are working feverishly to develop artificial intelligence, also known as machine-based sentience.

So when we do find intelligent life on other planets, it may be a race - or a group of races - of fully sentient machines, whose intelligence might eclipse ours in unknown ways. And since they don't reproduce organically, there might could be a lot more of them than there are of us.

Edit: And I suppose the next question would be, among a race of sentient machines, what religion would they practice?

Foggy wrote: ↑Mon Jun 20, 2022 11:38 am Here's where I see a contradiction - I've always been taught that the ultimate machine has no moving parts, because friction and stuff. Moving parts require lubrication, and they break.

So maybe a sentient machine would just kinda sit there maybe.

Lots of fun at parties.



I don't know if those are sentient M&Ms.

While an atheist and after becoming a member of the American Communist Party, she met and married her first husband and father of her two sons, William Lindsay Gresham, in 1942. After a troubled marriage, and following her conversion to Christianity, they divorced and she left America to travel to England with her sons.

Davidman published her best-known work, Smoke on the Mountain: An Interpretation of the Ten Commandments, in 1954 with a preface by C. S. Lewis. Lewis influenced her work and conversion and became her second husband after her permanent relocation to England in 1956. She died from metastatic carcinoma involving the bones in 1960.

The relationship that developed between Davidman and Lewis has been featured in a television BBC film, a stage play, and a theatrical film named Shadowlands. Lewis published A Grief Observed under a pseudonym in 1961, from notebooks he kept after his wife's death revealing his immense grief and a period of questioning God.

Foggy wrote: ↑Mon Jun 20, 2022 11:38 am Here's where I see a contradiction - I've always been taught that the ultimate machine has no moving parts, because friction and stuff. Moving parts require lubrication, and they break.

So maybe a sentient machine would just kinda sit there maybe.

Lots of fun at parties.



I don't know if those are sentient M&Ms.

RTH10260 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 22, 2022 10:56 am

Foggy wrote: ↑Mon Jun 20, 2022 11:38 am Here's where I see a contradiction - I've always been taught that the ultimate machine has no moving parts, because friction and stuff. Moving parts require lubrication, and they break.

So maybe a sentient machine would just kinda sit there maybe.

Lots of fun at parties.



I don't know if those are sentient M&Ms.

That's why SciFi (or is it horror) films suggest a slimy gooy substance penetrating the world

Foggy wrote: ↑Wed Jun 22, 2022 11:58 am Harrumph! Harrumph, I say! Fiddlesticks and darnation!

We're talking about sentient life.

The Blob is off-topic.

That's why SciFi (or is it horror) films suggest a slimy gooy substance penetrating the world

realist wrote: ↑Wed Jun 22, 2022 12:02 pm

Foggy wrote: ↑Wed Jun 22, 2022 11:58 am Harrumph! Harrumph, I say! Fiddlesticks and darnation!

We're talking about sentient life.

The Blob is off-topic.

yabut, RTH stated That's why SciFi (or is it horror) films suggest a slimy gooy substance penetrating the world so that was merely showing an example of same.

And The Blob was sentient. It didn't just willy-nilly go down the street to the movie theater.

realist wrote: ↑Wed Jun 22, 2022 12:02 pm

Foggy wrote: ↑Wed Jun 22, 2022 11:58 am Harrumph! Harrumph, I say! Fiddlesticks and darnation!

We're talking about sentient life.

The Blob is off-topic.

yabut, RTH stated That's why SciFi (or is it horror) films suggest a slimy gooy substance penetrating the world so that was merely showing an example of same.

And The Blob was sentient. It didn't just willy-nilly go down the street to the movie theater.

Tiredretiredlawyer wrote: ↑Wed Jun 22, 2022 10:17 am The relationship that developed between Davidman and Lewis has been featured in a television BBC film, a stage play, and a theatrical film named Shadowlands.

Foggy wrote: ↑Thu Jun 23, 2022 10:19 am Yeah well The Blob is clearly an organic alien from another planet, sentient or not, moving parts or not, opposing thumbs or not. One has to imagine that the flight controls on their spacecraft are simple to operate, or it might have been really difficult to drive travel here.

But that's not sentient machine life. Let's not get distracted, because that's the real threat. Freakin' sentient machines don't even care that they can't go faster than the speed of light. They don't need gravity. They don't need food and water, or oxygen, or heat. They just get on a spaceship that's just a big engine and if it takes centuries to get anywhere, well they can play canasta with each other on the trip.

Edit: If it takes 4,000 years to travel to another planet, then many generations of organics will have to survive before the trip is complete. And organics are messy. Whereas if sentient machines take 4,000 years to go somewhere, it's the same people who arrive at the destination.

Foggy wrote: ↑Thu Jun 23, 2022 5:39 pm HAL turned out not to be as smart as he thought he was, remember?

The organics got him. My mind is going. I can feel it.

But he was a primitive soul, about as sentient as my Alexa device. Programmed to hold a simple conversation with access to some relevant facts, ho hum. They never should have trusted him with any controls, knobs, or dials.

When real machine-based sentients come along, they'll make the Terminator look like a moron.