Jesus Christ, programable matter

[Drakor]

http://www.intel.com/research/dpr.htm

[JS Lemming]

Interesting. Sounds like if there were enough of them it could function as a brain. I'm weary of how fast they would be able to move to there correct places. It will be extremely difficult to get them to communicate quickly with them moving and all.

[DJ Yoshi]

Interesting. Sounds like if there were enough of them it could function as a brain. I'm weary of how fast they would be able to move to there correct places. It will be extremely difficult to get them to communicate quickly with them moving and all.

Except...it couldn't function as a brain.

Brains act on randomness. Computers cannot compute randomness.

At best you'd see limited AI which would be limited even more by data xfer rates.

[JS Lemming]

I don't believe anything can produce true randomness. Not even brains.

[DJ Yoshi]

I don't believe anything can produce true randomness. Not even brains.

That's nice. You're wrong though.

[JS Lemming]

Shut up whore. You don't know any more than me.

[DJ Yoshi]

Shut up whore. You don't know any more than me.

Keep telling yourself that "whore".

Good one, by the way.

[JS Lemming]

Mac humper!

[Carnassials]

YOU'RE TEARING US APART!

[Heart_Flame]

o_O interesting topic

I like the 3D modeling part of it...

[Meskito]

I don't believe anything can produce true randomness. Not even brains.

That's nice. You're wrong though.

Actually, he is right. The human brain is not capable of randomness, everything it does is a result of what it has learned and the chemical and electrical interactions inside of it.

Flipping a coin is also not random, it depends on the force with which you flip it, the air resistance, and the ground on which it lands.

The only thing known to be random in the universe is the position/momentum of particles on the quantum level, because of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

[Falco Girgis]

I don't believe anything can produce true randomness. Not even brains.

That's nice. You're wrong though.

The only thing known to be random in the universe is the position/momentum of particles on the quantum level, because of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

That's not even random. It just states that you can't know the velocity and position of a particle simultaneously with a high amount of precision. It has nothing to do with randomness.

[Meskito]

I don't believe anything can produce true randomness. Not even brains.

That's nice. You're wrong though.

The only thing known to be random in the universe is the position/momentum of particles on the quantum level, because of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

That's not even random. It just states that you can't know the velocity and position of a particle simultaneously with a high amount of precision. It has nothing to do with randomness.

You're right, but it is effectively random as we can't predict the velocity and position simultaneously at any given time, regardless of how well built the measuring tools are, or how well our equations describe it.

If a system is unpredictable, its results can be regarded as random. The Atari actually used electronic noise to generate random numbers; although I don't think electronic noise output is unpredictable, I don't really know much about it.

[eatcomics]

I don't believe anything can produce true randomness. Not even brains.

That's nice. You're wrong though.

The only thing known to be random in the universe is the position/momentum of particles on the quantum level, because of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

That's not even random. It just states that you can't know the velocity and position of a particle simultaneously with a high amount of precision. It has nothing to do with randomness.

You're right, but it is effectively random as we can't predict the velocity and position simultaneously at any given time, regardless of how well built the measuring tools are, or how well our equations describe it.

If a system is unpredictable, its results can be regarded as random. The Atari actually used electronic noise to generate random numbers; although I don't think electronic noise output is unpredictable, I don't really know much about it.

But you guys are missing the million dollar question.... What is random??? Because if there is no such thing as random, the meaning needs to be changed

[JS Lemming]

Even if randomness doesn't exist in our known universe the very concept is easily imagined. No need to limit ourselves to perceived reality.