A layer of paint

Originally posted by KellyJay
That will not happen.
Kelly

Suppose you had:

(a) a person with consciousness who behaved in ways suggesting he or she was conscious (including saying things like "I'm conscious! Really!"😉

(b) a machine without consciousness that behaved in ways suggesting it was conscious (including saying things like "I'm conscious! Really!"😉

How would you tell the difference between (a) and (b), over the internet say?

Now suppose you had:

(1) a person with consciousness who behaved in ways suggesting he or she was conscious (including saying things like "I'm conscious! Really!"😉

(2) a person without consciousness who behaved in ways suggesting he or she was conscious (including saying things like "I'm conscious! Really!"😉

How would you tell the difference between (1) and (2), over the internet say?

But, in reality, we never worry about the difference between (1) and (2), do we? We never think: "Gee, I wonder whether bbarr is conscious, but RBHILL isn't. Or vice versa?"

But, if we don't wonder about distinguishing (1) and (2), why should we worry about distinguishing (a) and (b)?

Doesn't this suggest that, if a machine behaves in ways that are complex enough to mimic a conscious human being, then we do, in effect, regard it is conscious, and there is nothing more to consciousness than that?

And if so, isn't all we have to do is surmount the technical obstacle of building a sufficiently smart machine? Surely, you can rule that out, like people a few hundred years ago ruled out travelling to the moon, or talking to someone on the other side of the world, or developing a handheld device that can beat 99.999% of people everyone at speed chess?

Originally posted by Halitose
For a start, the beautifully worked out dates, just how is this all dated?

Okay, there are several techniques used to work out the different numbers, and I'll attempt to run you through them, but please bear in mind I'm not a paleontologist and my knowledge isn;t perfect.

Age of the (crusty) earth. Easier than you might think! First you need some really really old rock. The oldest rocks are found (unsurprisingly) in Oz. You take a sample of this rock and you look for the elemental signal of two radioactive isotopes, rubidium and strontium. Now, rubidium breaks down to strontium, with a half life of 49 billion years. So, we work out the ratio of one to the other and it allows us to date when that rock was formed. The oldest Aussie rocks are in at about 4 billion years old. This must have been then the earth had cooled enough to form a crust.

Working out how much older than that the earth is is also relatively simple. We know the mass of the earth and we therefore know the mass of the bolides that must have collided to form earth; it's a (relatively) simple step to calculate the energy those collisions would have created and how much of that energy would have to be dissipate by 4 billion years ago to allow rock formation. This was between 0.5 and 1 billion years. We now have the age of the earth.

The rest is pretty easy actually. You use the fossil record. In rocks around 3.95 byo there are fossil sphericals that look alot like cells. By 2 billion years ago there were definate cells. 1 billion years ago the fossil record shows a dramatic increase in the siz eof these cells, suggesting a shift from prokaryotic to eukaryotic (simple microbes to more complex cells, like animal and plant cells).

We have developed techniques which allow the positive identification of refernce dates between different rocks, for example the irridium band in rocks associated with the mass extinction at the KT boundary (65 mya) (Irridium is not found naturally on this planet, but is a common component of meteorites). Incidentally they use Argon dating for the KT.

(Oh the extinction 300 million years ago (mya), can be dated using the moon! We know there was a big extinction, because the fossil record shows a massive change around that time (95% of species were destroyed), but we couldn;t explain it until rock samples were brought back from the moon and dated - 300 million years old. The bollide impacts that caused the craters could be dated relatively easily)

That covers most of it, but please ask any questions.

Oh, I almost forgot, I was a little forgiving with the 3 million years of humans. Cro Magnon man was about 30,000 years ago. The first 'person' named Lucy (she was named after the song that was playing on the radio when her fossils were uncovered - Lucy in the sky with diamonds) was identified to be about 1 million years ago. 3 million years is probably a good date for the evolution of large apes.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
There would be massive implications of this! There is massive drive towards half decent AI. I mean, look, if video games developers are finding a place for it in video games do you really think that the scientific community wouldn;t have use for it?

Think how great it would be to send truly intellegent spaceships of to explore the universe, able to ...[text shortened]... illions of perturbations.

Trust me, there is a huge push for AI, and in time, it will happen!

What I meant was that there is more drive to create other forms of AI than human-like AI. For example a chess computer plays chess via a very computationally intensive method and not just pattern matching the way humans do. The other AI examples you give would also mostly not be human like though nevertheless inteligent. The key here is that the biggest benefits to be gained from a computer AI are in its advantages over human AI. For example what would you do if your computer refused to do any more work for you because it was against its religion ?

what can a machine have as a faith, if man builds it, the creator is greater than the machine as christians know our creater is greater than us and we do not give over to equality but as servants to his work

Originally posted by scottishinnz
Okay, there are several techniques used to work out the different numbers, and I'll attempt to run you through them, but please bear in mind I'm not a paleontologist and my knowledge isn;t perfect.

Age of the (crusty) earth. Easier than you might think! First you need some really really old rock. The oldest rocks are found (unsurprisingly) in Oz ...[text shortened]... t 1 million years ago. 3 million years is probably a good date for the evolution of large apes.

You take a sample of this rock and you look for the elemental signal of two radioactive isotopes, rubidium and strontium.

Okay, some assumptions used in radiometric dating:

1a) The initial concentration of daughter is assumed; in some cases this assumption is quite accurate e.g. Rb-Sr when measuring mica since it excludes Strontium upon crystallization, but in most cases this is an assumption.
2) The rock being dated is assumed a closed system throughout history; needless to say, any contamination would throw the numbers off.
3) There was no migration of either parent or daughter isotope e.g. water percolation.
4) The rate of radioactive decay was constant - exposure to neutrino, neutron, or cosmic radiation could have greatly changed isotopic ratios or the rates at some time in the past.

We know the mass of the earth and we therefore know the mass of the bolides that must have collided to form earth

Eh? Isn't that begging the question? What proof do you have for this collision?

Incidentally they use Argon dating for the KT.

K-Ar dating has it's own problems:

1)Potassium is very volatile.
2)Potassium is easily leached by water, and can migrate through rocks under certain circumstances.
3)Argon-40, the daughter substance, makes up about one percent of the atmosphere, which is therefore a possible source of contamination - this can be corrected for.
4)Argon-36 can be formed in rocks by cosmic radiation - this is normally not corrected for.
5)Argon from the environment may be trapped in magma by pressure and rapid cooling - resulting in an incorrectly assumed daughter isotope initial concentration, this will give very high erroneous age results.
6)Volcanoes with known eruption dates have yielded dates in the hundreds of thousands to millions of years.

The first 'person' named Lucy was identified to be about 1 million years ago.

What dating method was used on him/her? Also Lucy is about 40% of the skeleton of an ape - bones pieced together from several cubic meters of dirt, the skeleton wasn't even complete.

Cro-Magnon falls within valid variation of modern man - so what's the difference?

Originally posted by Halitose
[b]You take a sample of this rock and you look for the elemental signal of two radioactive isotopes, rubidium and strontium.

Okay, some assumptions used in radiometric dating:

1a) The initial concentration of daughter is assumed; in some cases this assumption is quite accurate e.g. Rb-Sr when measuring mica since it excludes Strontium upon crysta ...[text shortened]... complete.

Cro-Magnon falls within valid variation of modern man - so what's the difference?[/b]

Without bothering to deal with all the nonsense about how about a dozen or more radiometric methods that give approximately the same results are all wrong for completely different reasons (that has been debunked in these forums and on talkorigins many times), both your knowledge of "Lucy" is flawed.

http://www.asu.edu/clas/iho/lucy.html

Lucy is certainly not an ape as she walked upright as her primary locomotion and no ape does. The age of her remains is approximately 3.18 million years.

Originally posted by no1marauder
Without bothering to deal with all the nonsense about how about a dozen or more radiometric methods that give approximately the same results are all wrong for completely different reasons (that has been debunked in these forums and on talkorigins many times), both your knowledge of "Lucy" is flawed.

http://www.asu.edu/clas/iho/lucy.html

...[text shortened]... primary locomotion and no ape does. The age of her remains is approximately 3.18 million years.

Yes, sorry, you are correct. I have been writing from memory, and since it was 5 years ago that I did this course at Uni sometimes errors creep in.

Originally posted by Halitose
[b]You take a sample of this rock and you look for the elemental signal of two radioactive isotopes, rubidium and strontium.

Okay, some assumptions used in radiometric dating:

1a) The initial concentration of daughter is assumed; in some cases this assumption is quite accurate e.g. Rb-Sr when measuring mica since it excludes Strontium upon crysta ...[text shortened]... complete.

Cro-Magnon falls within valid variation of modern man - so what's the difference?[/b]

Okay then,

Well I've stated my position. We both know that these techniques have assumptions (all techniques, for everything, do), but this is the best information we have. What is your position on this - do you have a better viable alternative? Unless you can disprove my dates (all you've done is cast doubt, not disprove) you're just gonna have to live with them.

Originally posted by no1marauder
Without bothering to deal with all the nonsense about how about a dozen or more radiometric methods that give approximately the same results are all wrong for completely different reasons (that has been debunked in these forums and on talkorigins many times), both your knowledge of "Lucy" is flawed.

http://www.asu.edu/clas/iho/lucy.html

...[text shortened]... primary locomotion and no ape does. The age of her remains is approximately 3.18 million years.

..a dozen or more radiometric methods that give approximately the same results

Do they?

From your site about Lucy:

"Although several hundred fragments of hominid bone were found at the Lucy site, there was no duplication of bones."

So no duplication conclusively proves that all the bones pieced together were from the same organism? Interesting... Like a giant jigsaw with extra pieces in case you loose some.

Originally posted by Halitose
[b]..a dozen or more radiometric methods that give approximately the same results

Do they?

From your site about Lucy:

"Although several hundred fragments of hominid bone were found at the Lucy site, there was no duplication of bones."

So no duplication conclusively proves that all the bones pieced together were from the same organism? Interesting... Like a giant jigsaw with extra pieces in case you loose some.[/b]

It does make it way more likely.

Irrespective, there are hominid (not human though) bones dated at 3 million years old.

Irrespective of the absolute dates involved, you cannot deny (although I'm sure you'll try) that the earth is very, very old, and we, as a species are not. My analogy, even if only loosly, stands.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
Okay then,

Well I've stated my position. We both know that these techniques have assumptions (all techniques, for everything, do), but this is the best information we have. What is your position on this - do you have a better viable alternative? Unless you can disprove my dates (all you've done is cast doubt, not disprove) you're just gonna have to live with them.

...this is the best information we have.

Undeniably, but it may still be wrong. This is not the fool-proof, ironclad system that many proclaim as final confirmation of the age of the universe/earth/fossils.

do you have a better viable alternative?

Nope.

Originally posted by Halitose
[b]..a dozen or more radiometric methods that give approximately the same results

Do they?

From your site about Lucy:

"Although several hundred fragments of hominid bone were found at the Lucy site, there was no duplication of bones."

So no duplication conclusively proves that all the bones pieced together were from the same organism? Interesting... Like a giant jigsaw with extra pieces in case you loose some.[/b]

What is it about the English language that is such a mystery to you? No duplication means there were no"extra pieces" in the "giant jigsaw". Yes, lacking duplicate bones the fact that they were all found in the same immediate area almost certainly means they were from the same organism. Make a logical case they were not in contradiction to the logical case they were; that's how science works.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
It does make it way more likely.

Irrespective, there are hominid (not human though) bones dated at 3 million years old.

Irrespective of the absolute dates involved, you cannot deny (although I'm sure you'll try) that the earth is very, very old, and we, as a species are not. My analogy, even if only loosly, stands.

Irrespective, there are hominid (not human though) bones dated at 3 million years old.

Bearing in mind the assumptions above, I'm not yet going for this 3 MYO golden mean.

Irrespective of the absolute dates involved, you cannot deny (although I'm sure you'll try) that the earth is very, very old, and we, as a species are not. My analogy, even if only loosly, stands.

Precariously propped up on a myriad assumptions and strawmen, but even if it were true, does your analogy in any way belittle the importance of mankind?

Originally posted by Halitose
Precariously propped up on a myriad assumptions and strawmen, but even if it were true, does your analogy in any way belittle the importance of mankind?

Would irrefutable proof of our descent from the trees detract from the dignity of the noble gibbon?

Originally posted by Halitose
[b]..a dozen or more radiometric methods that give approximately the same results

Do they?

From your site about Lucy:

"Although several hundred fragments of hominid bone were found at the Lucy site, there was no duplication of bones."

So no duplication conclusively proves that all the bones pieced together were from the same organism? Interesting... Like a giant jigsaw with extra pieces in case you loose some.[/b]

Yes, radiometric dating methods yield approximately the same results except in unusual circumstances. Take a look at the first few tables at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html#dal01.