Life, the Grand Simulation?

i just finished watching Mission to Mars for the zillionth time. btw, this essay is dedicated to Kristin, Richard, and Alicia. There are many unrealistic scenarios in MtM such as the meteor shower just before they reach Mars or reducing their velocity wrt Mars (this is just...

Agent and VR Specifications

Agent absolute minimum requirements:has a unique identificationmobilityability to perceive local environmentability to manipulate local environment limited by physical lawsability to communicate with nearby agents via textrule-base list, ability to access list and add...

GP and Simulating Conscious Agents

About two years ago, i proposed using genetic programming to breed conscious agents in a virtual reality. GP is a paradigm recently championed by John Koza, http://www.genetic-programming.com/ , which has some very powerful applications. An agent,...

Scientists deliver tsunami warning software for Indonesia

"The software was developed by Germany's Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Ocean Research in the port city Bremerhaven. Buoys which measure seabed movements and pulses in the water have already been placed along the Sumatran coast and the Jakarta lab has already issued...

Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007)

"On Tuesday, March 6, French theorist Jean Baudrillard passed away. Trained as a sociologist, Baudrillard put his knack for observing society and its engagement with mass media to work as a philosopher. His writings on television, video, and electronic mediation placed him...

Sports fans "sick and tired" of unpunished, blatant cheating!

A site put up by a lover of football on the 14th of February against blatant cheating in sport going unpunished got a lot more attention than expected. Without any publicity as such the site almost immediately started getting contributions to it's pages and signatories on...

CIA exercise reveals consequences of defeat

"The CIA this month conducted a simulation of how the Iraq war affects the global jihadist movement, and one conclusion was that a U.S. loss would embolden al Qaeda to expand its ranks of terrorists as well as pick new strategic targets, according to sources familiar with the...