metadigital

Pity he'll have to search for this thread as it has been spammed out of existence ...

Superman 3!

So how do you know that people are not just "computers with look-up tables"? The problem with this analysis is that it ain't science (in the strict logical positivism sense). It makes a good point, initially, but it is, ultimately, an anachronism. Artificial Intelligence has made a lot of advances in recent decades. Back when I was at university, scientists had created a theta wave from a small series of artificial neurons. They weren't sure how they had, at the time (maybe now they do: I haven't kept up to date): it had spontaneously occurred when they switched the "mind" on. ...

Yes.

... And opinion is not fact!

I am almost scared to ask, but what is "NWN TP"? :ph34r:

Now that was a surprise!

How is playing a level 50 character with maximum stats testing the balance of the game? I think you missed the rest of my post, so I'll quote it here for you.

If only my father had bought me shares in Apple Computer Inc, rather than the Apple //e computer ... *sighs*

She's just using you to get to me <{POST_SNAPBACK}> That's not what she told me last Saturday night. "

But will we control the chip ... or the chip us?

That was the nub of my thought: if the extremists / criminal overlords are able to keep outside the jurisdiction of the police, who are constrained by the use of legal means, then would it be expedient to allow some to act outside the law, in order to enforce it? And if the answer is yes, then how do you prevent them from over-reaching their mandate (effecting coups / etc)?

I have no problem with a Massively Multiplayer Online game, per se, but I am quickly turned off by being a drone trapped in repetitive gameplay ...

Spam infestation detected and destroyed. Area lockdown effected. Please leave all nuked-sand-turned-to-glass in the pit.

I hated SoU, especially the end chapter. It just ... wandered around and ended with a predictable and boring and eminently skippable slog. (One of my characters was totally over-encombered, carting around all the loot I had raided, and I still beat the silly game hands down ... silly boring end-boss).

I often use entirely mouse-based movement in FPRPGs lately. Traditionally, I'm ASDF for twitch gaming (FPS, MMORPG), as this is the fastest twitch configuration for rapid and complex character control and has the additional advantage of putting the fingers permanently in typing position, for the sake of any typed commands. That works out like this: Forward: D Backward: A L-Strafe: S R-Strafe: F L-Turn: X R-Turn V This means that the fingers do not ever need to lift from the home row or move from key to key for essential motion, and thus, do not produce even a moment's delay in twitch play. Keyboard-only circle strafing (as opposed to mouselook circle-strafing) still requires that one finger drops to the row beneath ASDF (to hit X or V), however. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Cool ... I might even give this a whirl, although I try to use the default (long story). Can't you hook up a gamepad? I'm sure there is an option to do so (I remember there was the option to reverse the Y-axis in the control options). Or would that add strain to the wrist?

Good word! As for judging others ... be careful with that lens, in case you catch a glimpse of yourself ... "

Well, maybe the problem is that it is not possible to serve more than one master, simultaneously ... those who OCD level-grind and want 150+ levels for their

The queue starts to the left and forms down the street, across the city and down the river and across the continent, beyond.

Played the first one (bought it by mistake) for several hours straight: my monk made it to level 5 before I wandered around the humungous city into a dark underground area and was killed, dead, in a single attack by an obviously very-high-level naughty person (and their pet). At this point I was bored with the constant level grinding, uninstalled the game and never touched it again.

Noam Chomsky? OMG! Kaftan, would you expand a little on why you think "the world is gradually comming to a point where we dont need them anymore."? Are you talking about the (bias-neutral) technology that allows the lexa scripta to be policed in the open, without need of an oversight force to clean up the margins that might be able to escape justice?

Cheer up! It's a game, and a pretty darn good one to play!

I have hit upon the method of play: don't level up just because you can, level up when you want to change the game (to get better equipment, different monsters, etc). Just because the PC can reach level 158, doesn't mean that is the best stratedy to adopt. The advantage to the Oblivion model is that the PC can reach whatever level the person playing wants to in the time allotted ... whether that be staying at level one, or reaching the teens by the end of the game. Simple, really.

Do you think it is a good idea to have a "secret police force"? By that I am encompassing all the security and counter-intelligence forces, like the CIA, FBI, MI5/6, KGB/FSB, Mossad, etc. Now, assuming that our healthy democracy needs a scret service, what would you: want them to be able to do? not want them to be able to do? For example, would it be okay to allow them to act "above the law", as long as they maintain everybody else's compliance with the laws? Should there be penalties for the members of the force, e.g. they would not be permited to own anything (the state would provide for all their needs) to minimise personal gain from the system? QVIS CVSTODIET IPSOS CVSTODES? Most importantly, who would police these police? Another body? (Who polices them? etc) As oxymoronic as it is, I don't think it is possible for a free society to exist without such a conceit ... but does it follow that the freer the society, the more powerful the secret police (and the more controlled they must be)?

Do humans have souls? Well you, certainly, think that you are possessing of consciousness. But bracket that for a moment and think about everybody else: would it be that much of a stretch to believe that they were all intelligent (or not so intelligent) machines? Ever heard about Searle's Chinese Room problem? http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~philos/MindDi...hineseroom.html The ontological questions aside, whether we can exploit robots depends on the cost factor. As someone else already said: humans are cheap. Genetically engineered "humans" are even cheaper. Do you consider a genetically programmed organism that happens to look like a human a robot? What line do you draw, given that they might very well be the equivalent of mentally disabled people? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Huxley's Brave New World, even though it is approaching its centenary, describes the easiest fascist state to make, using a hive/colony analogy to create the necessary "Fordistic" (assembly line) of societal members to create an optimal society. Brain-damaged / genetically enhanced humans are a cheaper alternative to million (billion?) dollar robots, at least until production reaches some sort nirvana that isn't even conceivable at the moment. This would be (and is) ofset by the individual > society mantra that libertarians have been decrying for centuries, however. PS Searle's thought experiment suffers from the reductio ad absurdum: specifically a computer is just "a CPU and a look-up table": this is only true of computers and not the later neural networks, which are more closely aligned with the parallel processing model of the human mind.