Thursday, April 08, 2010

Limits

Just a quick reminder to the Bayblabbers to continue to listen to the radiolab podcast. The latest episode has a very interesting section near the end about scientific answers generated by computers that we can not grasp with our limited cognitive abilities. The impossibility of the human brain achieving genuine insight into complex biological systems is also briefly touched upon. Of course, as usual, the whole episode is great. mp3.
I find this stuff so interesting to think about as I really enjoy the theme of the impending artificial intelligence singularity in science fiction. (I know that one could argue this theme has been overdone in science fiction but perhaps that's because it's so plausible.) As an aside, I am finally becoming more interested in the spin-off of the Battlestar Galactica series, Caprica, which also explores these themes. (albeit using extremely lame looking robots)


2 comments:

Guillaume said...

"lame looking robots" ... does this imply that "six" is no longer in the series ? :(

gawp said...

If you're interested in Singularity stuff, Bruce Sterling's Long Now foundation seminar is the most cogent summary I've read/heard of the topic.

http://blog.longnow.org/2004/06/14/bruce-sterling-the-singularity-your-future-as-a-black-hole/