Just fine, thanks Ollie. Settling into my new bachelor lifestyle. Sorta weird sorta wonderfull. Occasionally quite sad. And yourself?

In reply to this comment by EndAll:
Cheers Schmawy! How've you been?

In reply to this comment by schmawy:
*quality

Cheers Schmawy! How've you been?

In reply to this comment by schmawy:
*quality

merci, Issy!

In reply to this comment by Issykitty:
*promote the Bird!!!

http://www.videosift.com/video/Andrew-Bird-Lull-Live

>> ^bcglorf:
>> ^EndAll:
>> ^bcglorf
don't have to necessarily buy into any of this to view it, or even enjoy it. For some these videos and theories are simply entertaining. There may be some truth, but that's for you to discern - and it might be worthwhile. I don't deny that those truths are often buried by the heavy sensationalism, although one who agrees with such methods might say that's a good way to get people to "wake up." Give it a watch, see for yourself.

The same could be said of FOX 'News', and frighteningly enough it's on average less biased than this. If you want the contrarian view there are infinitely better sources, this is just garbage that attempts to sway people based on their ignorance of the mountain of facts that are left out because they are inconvenient to the films world view.

Ohhh...so THIS is garbage to pacify my ignorance. Should I feel better now? Or should I try to reap the truth, which you obviously already know, from this field of random plots?

This isn't ENTERTAINMENT; if you want that, go to the local theater. These are actual comments and events associated with the people who made the monitary decisions that you and Ihave to live by.


FYI, the Congress is supposed to regulate our money supply, not a PRIVATE (bank owned) organisation called the "Federal" Reserve.

Nor am I supposed to lulled into security by an administration who promises HOPE, Change and anything else they can find in my pocket.

>> ^JiggaJonson:
Every joke in scrubs is as follows:
"Whatever happens I hope JD doesn't do something crazy..."
turns to JD
"BHLAHHHHHHHHHHBLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEBLAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!"


Wonderful generalization about an otherwise amazing television show that is currently stuck in a lull. The daydream sequences are always hilarious and not tied in any way to what you believe the show is always about.

Is it common usage to pronounce LOL as "Lull" ? This tickles my annoying bone.

Oh man, you make a good argument here GSF, but some of your points are wonderfully put down by Daniel Dennett (my hero) in, hmm, I think it was Consciousness Explained. (I wrote an assignment on this a few years back, I'll just see if I can get the quotes and stuff..)

The Chinese Room thought experiment is essentially a dud. Dennett calls it an Intuition Pump.

“while philosophers and others have always found flaws in his thought experiment when it is considered as a logical argument, it is undeniable that its “conclusion” continues to seem “obvious” to many people. Why? Because people don’t actually imagine the case in the detail it requires.”

He argues that Searle's position may:

“(…) lull us into the (unwarranted) supposition that the giant program would work by somehow simply “matching up” the input Chinese characters with some output Chinese characters. No such program would work, of course”

For a program to work it would have to be:
“extraordinarily supple, sophisticated, and multilayered system, brimming with “world knowledge” and meta-knowledge and meta-meta-knowledge about its own responses, the likely responses of its interlocutor, its own “motivations” and the motivations of the interlocutor, and much, much more”

The point is, that Searle only looks at the man in the box, and not the whole box, which is what answers. While the little man may not have an understanding of the Chinese letters, the man + the reference book does have that understanding. Searle himself argues that this box would pass a Turing test, but that's the whole box, not just the little man inside.

You say

"Let us use another example. Let us say that we have broadcasting towers all over the USA. They are broadcasting all sorts of different programs to all sorts of different people. It is a complex web of towers and receivers but it all seems to work out ok. So, are we to conclude that radio towers are conscious? Of course not, but that is what are are doing with the human experience of consciousness. Lets look at that quickly.

When you experience something, you experience every one of your scenes simultaneously. You remember the sounds, the tastes, the sights...it is all there. However, your brain never really has a point in which all points connect. Your consciousness is something that seems to violate the laws of physics, that things are happening in different locations in space at different times, but for your consciousness, at the same time. This isn't something that is reducible to brain states, and not something that is physically possible in computer technology as we know it. It doesn't matter if it is parallel or not, if things don't touch but are somehow related this is mystifying; and as a result, unreproducible. Perhaps consciousnesses is reducible to one point in the brain we haven't found, but so far, there is no such thing."

And again, I want to refer to Dennett and his "Multiple Drafts theory", which I think is an excellent answer to this. I don't think that consciousness violates physics as such (obviously it doesn't, or it couldn't exist in our physical universe). I think that our consciousness is an amalgamation of sensory input that is processed in our brain and presented in our consciousness as "scenes". I mean, we have a much, much larger flow of sensory input than is presented to us, and our unconscious mind filters though this and presents what is perceived to be relevant inputs to "us" (our conscious minds). I think in the end it is actually reducible to brain states, in the same way that any give program, say firefox with videosift loaded, can be reduced to an electrical state at a given time in my computer.

On the concept on Blue and blueness, I think you are making a Qualia argument. To be honest, I can't remember all the details of that right now, but again Dennet's "Quining Qualia" in one of his books covers it greatly, if my memory serves.

I also love this subject.

>> ^dag:
How would it work? Flash doesn't play on the iPhone. BTW - getting my iPhone 3Gs this Friday.


shit. in my excitement i completely forgot about that, plus i was playing around with youtube/iplayer on my iphone which also lulled me into a false sense of security. i'll email apple and tell them to sort out the flash problem, they'll probably rectify the problem within days.

and good luck with tearing yourself away from your iphone when it arrives.

The facts of our creation create a far more majestic, beautiful, astonishing, magnificent, and moving story than any creation myth ever fathomed in our history. I often fall asleep imagining the depths of the universe and the matter out there cascading around me as I zip from one end to the other like the Mind Scrambler ride. What lulls me and carries me off to sleep is the deeply felt knowledge that while we must be negligible in terms of size, impact and longevity compared with the cosmos, I--personally--am indeed one of the rarest and most peculiar things to ever grace the realm of existence. I don't need a fucking book or a man in a costume to tell me that I'm special.

Yanno, um, I don't think those ants are very happy or anything. They seem to be irked, or maybe even perturbed. Perhaps the gentle report of a few M-80s would lull them back to quiescence?

>> ^Mi1ler:
did i see some tiger style there?


I saw some drunken monkey there. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9wq7QC1Qi0
He lulls you into believing he's inebriated then POW!

I've never left videosift...since the day I logged in, I just stay on the site all day. I usually just fall asleep at my desk, cuddling my monitor at night time, the warm glow of videosifts classic theme lulling me to sleep. Sometimes I log in on my laptop. I hook up the aircard and videosift and I go out on a date. Sometimes we go on walks in the park or to a local cafe. We share a couple of laughs, we get into debates, we share a smoke and have a overall good time.

I want to take the relationship further, but videosift says we should keep it platonic.

It depends on how much work I actually have to do at work (or if sound/headphones can or cannot be used) but it's no less than once a day and up to several throughout. Lately however I've been in a bit of a lull trying to spend time away from the internet.

mharvey, you are either a good troll or you like remaining ignorant.

Going back to 2000. Whenever there was a lull in the violence, guess which side alway started up the killings first? Just like in this last bit of violence, Israel is the one who starts killing Palestinians.

It's not because they want peace, they do it to justify bulldozing and bombing and keeping their apartheid strong, and possible the extermination of a race of people.

I recommend this post which has some illustrative graphs and links to show Israel breaking the peace.