Dalek of the Day
Full props to mikeologist for steering us to this website in his thread. Many great Dalek images IMO of general interest to robot fanboys, I thought it deserved a thread of its own.
http://www.daleksoftheday.com
http://www.daleksoftheday.com
Comments
What if I only use a solenoid? Can I get credit for 1/3 of a motor, since most little DC motor armatures have 3 lobes?
Edit: Poop. There is an img tag here but it does not work so here is the image:
https://punch.photoshelter.com/image/I0000ZvleumhOmDo
Dalek Of The day 5th August 1981:
Something like this has been done with rat (rattus rat) neonatal brain cells... grown in sterile culture media on a tiny matrix of gold pins connected to instrumentation to detect the neural activity. This is not cutting edge... I remember things like this from the late 90s to the early 2000's. I do not know how far it went, but could only guess.
I have always thought that consciousness will not be achieved with silicon, rather it will take some form of biological computation. I am no expert in this field, just my opinion. I am very interested in differing opinions, so please do not rip me apart.
I have in the past grown neonatal rat brain cells (astroglial cells actually), it is relatively easy. However, I never grew them on gold pins. All one would need is a culture of rat brain cells (harvested from a one day old rat pup), sterile media (most expensive part of this), a glass tissue grinder (not expensive), antibiotics (bottle will last about a year in a refrigerated desiccator), cell culture flasks (radiation sterilized) and a CO2 incubator. A sterile HEPA hood with UV light sterilization would be very nice, as it will allow a much higher success rate for growing cells.
It has been a long time since I was involved in growing mammal cells in culture, but if someone is interested in trying this, I would be happy to walk them through the process. It not that hard, none of the materials needed are expensive or hard to get (nor illegal to possess), nor dangerous. I am sure that some of the techniques have evolved, but I had very good success at growing them, about 99% success. Out of a hundred flasks, only about 1 would be bad, never with bacteria, always fungal contamination. I think that this would be a really neat thing for a serious hacker type who is really interested in biological computation to get involved in. I have a hunch that there are potential patent-able things to be found in this line of experimentation.
Best,
J
Best,
J
I mean, if I build a machine, with silicon or whatever, and claim that it is "conscious" how would you evaluate it and determine if my claim is true or not?
Or perhaps my creation claims that it is "conscious" for itself (After all, why would it need me to do that?). How would you evaluate if it's claim is true or not?
Sorry, but I will pass on the chopping rat brain experiments.
Heater,
Thank you for your question.
The best that I can answer you is what the academy (used) to teach in freshman philosophy: Descartes' Cogito ergo sum. "I think, therefore I am".
Consciousness is like the supreme courts' non-definition of what pornography is... that is they famously claimed that 'they could not define pornography, but they know what it is'.
I really cannot define it, but I know what it is. I look in my pet dog or cats' eyes, and I see consciousness. One of the defining characteristics of consciousness is self preservation. If you make a device, I can always pull the plug to the mains. The machine, unless programmed too, will not protest being turned off. A cat or dog (or human for that matter) will fight to stay alive. My ancient Panasonic CF-29 will not protest being turned off or "killed'.
I feel that no matter how fast and powerful the silicon, that it will never achieve consciousness. Just my opinion, worth what I charge for it. Again, my opinion is that at the very least, that machine consciousness will take quantum computing.
Then again, maybe tomorrow, I will wake up and read an announcement that Intel and Microslop have a truly conscious machine. It would not be the first time that I have been wrong.
Best,
J
You can't, but neither can you prove that another person is conscious. You can only know if you're conscious. It is an assumption -- possibly wrong -- that just because one feels consciousness other humans must, too.
My feeling is that I am the only one that experiences consciousness. The rest of you are questionable.
I'm pleased as punch just to be a prop in Gordon's World.
Then, possibly my coding will be better, my decisions will be better and my wit sharpened in the process. Additionally, along with better coding and decision making and sharper wit, maybe my mathematical acuity would increase over time with the constant exposure to a Daleks' insults, and in the end my calculus skills will approach that of the late lamented (and cute) Adric's ability for solving complex differential equations and FFTs in his head.
All bad humor aside, I forgot to mention that one would also need a supply of sterile one use pipettes, a motorized pipetter, and a decent stereo microscope in order to do cell culture. I have seen decent 'scopes on e-bay for not too much. I also forgot that you would need some sterile trypsin to dissolve the extracellular matrix of the brain tissue so that the cells would properly adhere to the flask. A heavy alcohol lamp would also be very helpful under the hood to flame bottle and flask mouths without melting them. And speaking of flasks, the disposable precoated flasks are the way to go, as coating the inside of flasks is an unnecessary PIA. Don't bother with getting bottle filters to sterilize media, buy the premixed and filtered media. It will save a whole lot of time because you do not need to buffer, pH or proof the media. Oh, and how could I forget, a box of disposable cell scrapers... A vortex would be nice, but not necessary. And gloves and a lab coat... (It has literally been decades since I have done this, so I think of things that I have forgotten since then.) All told, I think if someone already has a clean but not white room containing a bench with a sink, power outlets, and a vacuum source, that a decent bio lab could be had (sans HEPA hood) for about eight grand. A small used and serviced HEPA hood would be about another ten K.
At Heater;
I know that the idea of chopping rat brains could be disgusting, (and I won't go into my physiological reaction when I first decapitated a rat), but with the hour old pups, it is really not bad. Before anyone chastise me for doing animal model studies, we were trying to do good. Our project was to find methods to cause undifferentiated brain cells to repair and innervate damaged areas of brain tissue caused by head trauma.
BTW, I like your avatar... I love old tube or 'hollow state' electronics.
Best,
J
Except for one small detail: It's me that has the consciousness, not you
I think this is basically the same as Descartes' view of the situation.