Silicon Awakes

Written by Charles Douglas Wehner


I have taught many things to idiots. I showed them how to calculate sines and cosines (http;//wehner.org/fpoint ), how to make animate pictures (http://www.wehner.org/tools/animate ) and 3D (http://wehner.org/tools/anna ).

The idiots were made of STONE.

Yes - they were silicon chips. They were "Central Processing Units" (CPUs). They were so dumb that they gave me no help. They just sat there waiting for me to tell them what to do - and I had to understandrepparttar procedures down torepparttar 105807 finest detail in order to teach them.

If I told them wrong, they would obediently followrepparttar 105808 wrong instruction. Thenrepparttar 105809 computer would "hang", or do crazy things.

So I learned patience.

Given enough understanding, there is virtually nothing you cannot do with silicon. Inrepparttar 105810 future there may be other semiconductors - possibly boron trinitride - but for now, silicon is king.

The methods used on one kind of semiconductor, however, will be valid for all time. It is notrepparttar 105811 details ofrepparttar 105812 program on a specific chip that are important, butrepparttar 105813 ideas behind them.

Inevitably, we analyse our own minds as we work. We have to learn to distinguish belief from knowledge. Belief is a "feeling" in what Freud calledrepparttar 105814 "Preconscious" (Vorbewußtsein). Knowledge isrepparttar 105815 set of solid ideas that have been tested and proven over and over again.

One cannot program a "conscious mind" into a silicon chip, when one only has a "feeling" of what a conscious mind is.

Mohammed ibn Musa abu Jafar al Khwarismi wrote a book. He said that numbers are made of parts, and can be divided into their parts... and so he went on. It was an excruciatingly slow process of reasoning - designed to avoid errors or omissions. It became a style known as "Al-Kwarisms".

According to Professor Donald E. Knuth, European professors with their European accents were teaching inrepparttar 105816 States. The students thought they were saying "ALGORITHM" - and a new technical term was born in 1956.

You need an "algorithm" when you want silicon to come to life. You need to think like a Greek philosopher - to questionrepparttar 105817 nature of "me". You need to distillrepparttar 105818 very essence of awareness from your knowledge ofrepparttar 105819 world. Unless you find it - and unlessrepparttar 105820 finding is TRUE - you will never reachrepparttar 105821 point of rousingrepparttar 105822 silicon imbecile.

I spent my life conjecturing aboutrepparttar 105823 nature of conscious life. The new revolution of data theory helped me. Computers became abundant, and information technology was going into realms likerepparttar 105824 neural net. As we learned about silicon, we also learned about ourselves.

I considered that we have just one-and-a-half kilogrammes (about three pounds) of brain. Allrepparttar 105825 data of our lives is stored inside it. There must be data compression.

My studies showed that there are mechanisms that refinerepparttar 105826 data fromrepparttar 105827 eyes (http://wehner.org/3d ) and fromrepparttar 105828 ears (http://wehner.org/honk ). There are mechanical things likerepparttar 105829 basilar membrane, and neurological things likerepparttar 105830 auditory and visual cortices. That means thatrepparttar 105831 brain is being fed with refined data.

Withrepparttar 105832 help of Martin Wilsher, I had also updated Aristotle's five senses. There are, in fact SEVEN senses - as told onrepparttar 105833 page aboutrepparttar 105834 honky-tonk piano (last page mentioned above).

What goes on BEYONDrepparttar 105835 data-refinement? What happens when data - generically - is being analysed?

I found a new variant on DIFFERENTIATION. It is not a mathematical process. It is a LOGICAL process. It isrepparttar 105836 logical parallel ofrepparttar 105837 calculus. I call itrepparttar 105838 new calculus of sets.

This process - DIFFERATION - seeks out anything NEW. New data cannot be compressed. It is passed on unchanged.

Old data can be defined by a coding system which states that it has been seen before. Inrepparttar 105839 BINARY calculus of sets, if TWO old sets of data repeat, they become ONE new set. Sorepparttar 105840 amount of data shrinks whilstrepparttar 105841 data is flowing in.

Ifrepparttar 105842 two sets are ofrepparttar 105843 same size, sixty-four items may become thirty-two, which become sixteen, then eight, then four, then two, then one.

What are the Odds?

Written by Terry Dashner


What arerepparttar odds?

Terry Dashner………………Faith Fellowship Church PO Box 1586 Broken Arrow, OK 74013

Chet Raymo, an astronomer and science writer who has calculatedrepparttar 105806 odds of our universe resulting, as he believes it did, from sheer chance:

“If, one second afterrepparttar 105807 Big Bang,repparttar 105808 ratio ofrepparttar 105809 density ofrepparttar 105810 universe to its expansion rate had differed from its assumed value by only one part in 1000000000000000 (no my “0” key isn’t stuck. That’s 10 torepparttar 105811 15th power.),repparttar 105812 universe would have either quickly collapsed upon itself or ballooned so rapidly that stars and galaxies could not have condensed fromrepparttar 105813 primal matter… The coin was flipped intorepparttar 105814 air 10 torepparttar 105815 15th power times, and came down on its edge but once. If allrepparttar 105816 grains of sand on allrepparttar 105817 beaches ofrepparttar 105818 Earth were possible universes—that is, universes consistent with laws of physics as we know them—and only one of those grains of sand were a universe that allowed forrepparttar 105819 existence of intelligent life, then that one grain of sand isrepparttar 105820 universe we inhabit.

The author who quoted Mr. Raymo’s statement says that he was asked to producerepparttar 105821 quote one time by a personal friend to Mr. Raymo. States Yancey, in his book entitled Soul Survivor, “One ofrepparttar 105822 physicists asked to seerepparttar 105823 quote by Raymo, whom he knew as a personal friend. He pondered a moment, thinking out loud, ‘Ten torepparttar 105824 fifteenth power, ten torepparttar 105825 fifteenth… let’s see there are [10 torepparttar 105826 22 power] stars inrepparttar 105827 universe—yeah, I can buy that. I’ll take those odds.’”

Speaking of odds, what arerepparttar 105828 odds thatrepparttar 105829 earth should be tilted on its axis 23-and-a-half degrees? To vary either way torepparttar 105830 slightest degree would mean death to life we know. What arerepparttar 105831 odds thatrepparttar 105832 Earth, and it alone in its galaxy, should berepparttar 105833 only planet with an atmosphere and environment capable of sustaining life as we know it? What arerepparttar 105834 odds that we were created by a loving God instead of a tyrant—not to mention that He is a God who is rational, comprehensible, and His creation is subject to verification? What arerepparttar 105835 odds that you and I were created for this time, in our fields of study, in our native countries, in our specific families, in our various colors, in our various cultures, with our various languages?

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