Turing test

[Serial_Apologist]

The first sailor in the zen story says: "The shoreline is moving".
The second says: "No it is the water which is moving".
The third says: "You are both wrong: it is the ship which moves!

To which the zen master answers: "Not the shoreline, not the water, not the ship; it is mind that moves".

[french frank]

My avatar is definitely me and real - and to prove it I will play a game of chess with you :-)

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

If a tree falls down in a forest and no one is around to hear it, will someone still start a thread about it on this forum?

did you not just do so noggins?

[Thropplenoggin]

did you not just do so noggins?

You're barking up the wrong lampPOST, dawg.

[ardcarp]

My cat has just informed (what I like to imagine is) me that she objects to being considered virtual.

[Nick Armstrong]

If a tree falls down in a forest and no one is around to hear it....

But which forest? What kind of tree? And yet again, no mention of Ida Haendel !!!

[french frank]

My cat has just informed (what I like to imagine is) me that she objects to being considered virtual.

Not, I presume, getting her own back in an oblique reference to one of The Choir regulars ...

[Anna]

My cat has just informed (what I like to imagine is) me that she objects to being considered virtual.

My cat has just informed me she does not like cheezeburger. lol

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

But which forest? What kind of tree? And yet again, no mention of Ida Haendel !!!

yes yes Caliban it must be computable! unlike me i'm a dawg! [non-computable][barking up the wrong whatsit &c]

[salymap]

Slightly creepy. Around here we have squirrels, foxes, the occasional dog walks by [ with owne]
Making a cuppa in the
kitchen a black cat was eating a bit of food intended for the birds, just outside the window.

I've just seen a pure white cat [albino ?] in the same spot inthe garden.Rather an 'Alice' day

[jayne lee wilson]

It's just online life, it's why twitter's always in the news, that clash between the idea and the reality. If "YOU" don't know "ME" personally in-the-flesh, no amount of "but this really is the real me" can change that. This Virtual veiling of identity is a given, which is why people play with the mystery and are usually unwilling to unmask...it feels like an opening up, an exposure, a new vulnerability.

But with lengthier posts it's best to use your instincts about what is or is not sincere, give or take a few brilliant actors...

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

i bought a new jumper today ...

[Dave2002]

http://www.insidescience.org/content/what-if-reality-was-really-just-sim-universe/871

[Quarky]

Eastern philosophies, as I understand them, would not have any difficulty with this issue.

The stone on the ground outside the church has a consciousness, a consciousness which is apparent, when coming into my area of awareness.

A post on this forum has its own consciousness. It may have been posted by a computer robot, or a human being. But as I become aware of the post, I become aware of the (virtual) life and consciousness within the post, and can respond within the limits of my mental faculties. I'm sure I could find an approprate quote in the Upanishads on the subject of IT, if you can give me a month or two.

[Pabmusic]

I must say that, because I am the only thing that I know exists, all this wonderful music I listen to daily, monthly, yearly, is all my own, whichever composer I ascribe it to. I think I'm the absolute genius of the universe! Much the same can be said for literature, painting and anything else you like. Peach Melba? Rubbish! Peach Pabmusic!! And Hitler and all the rest were figments of my own imagination, merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative (a neat quote from myself that I otherwise ascribe to the fictitious W. S. Gilbert).