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Could AI kill the soul hypothesis?

Karl Popper made a big stink about falsifiability . If you’re making a statement about the real world, there had better be some way to disprove (falsify) your statement. Let’s say your statement is “It’s raining”. I should be able to open my window and stick my arm outside and see if it gets wet. Writing as a software developer, I might use the shorter word “testable”. If your assertion is testable, it may be right or it may be wrong. I and others are empowered to figure that out. If the assertion is that life continues after death, how does one render that assertion testable? We must say more. “Ghosts exist”, for example, is testable, as long as your definition of “ghost” includes that they have some observable impacts on the living world. It should be possible to take a picture of a ghost, record a ghost saying something or moving an object. People make ghost hunter TV shows, of course, but the wider scientific community remains unconvinced because this “evidence” doesn’t meet the hi...
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The humility of supermen

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Here’s the problem with Superman as a character: He’s boring. Sure, all the Superman movies are packed with exciting drama. He’s facing off against world-ending threats, the odds always seem stacked against him, and though he ultimately triumphs, it always seems to have been a close call. Dramatic plots, no question. Superman movies are exciting, but Superman himself, as a character, generally isn’t. The trouble is that Superman is, traditionally, perfect: a demi-god, who always turns out to have whatever power he needs to defeat whatever enemy he faces. He can fly, he brushes off bullets and explosions, he can survive in the vacuum of space, and he’s always optimistic and kind. The trouble with a perfect character is that it leaves no room for character growth. We may admire people who seem to have it all, but (as Superman literally is) they also strike us as rather alien. They aren’t relatable. We look up to people who can face any challenge. We love people who have flaws. Making us ...
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Location: Tacoma, WA, USA
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Impeachment: Now or never

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In dissent from Monday’s order, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, said the majority had ignored a federal law that requires due process. ... Justice Sotomayor wrote that the majority had endorsed lawlessness. "The government has made clear in word and deed that it feels itself unconstrained by law, free to deport anyone anywhere without notice or an opportunity to be heard," she wrote. Here's a paywall-free link to the New York Times article .  Due process, also known as habeas corpus , is a fundamental right. Without it, we don't have a system of laws: we have an authoritarian system . If habeas corpus is quelled, the rule of law is threatened or extinguished because it removes the fundamental safeguard against arbitrary detention, allowing the state to imprison individuals without legal justification or accountability. Democratic Representative Al Green of Texas recently introduced articles of impeachment against Pre...
Location: Tacoma, WA, USA
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What's the difference?

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The problem in a nutshell You have a large, detailed, complex blueprint describing the world as you want it to be. You have another equally hairy document, a description of the world as it is today. If you decide to reify your blueprint, to breathe life into it, what about the world is going to change? Answering this question is critical, because someone has to review this blueprint for mistakes. You want to find those mistakes before they impact customers, not after. When your blueprint is large, no human can effectively scrutinize every line. You must narrow it down to what is changing. Why I care I've thought about this problem a lot. Since 2018 I've been on a Builder Tools team at Amazon that specializes in Infrastructure-As-Code (IAC). The product we own, "Live Pipeline Templates" (LPT), is in essence a scripting library that lets our customers describe what infrastructure they want, across every AWS region. If you've worked with AWS, you probably know Cloud...
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Location: Tacoma, WA, USA
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Here, There Be Dragon... Rubies...

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Big software projects, at big software companies, are deeply collaborative affairs. The majority of the work isn't writing code; it's getting a shared vision into everybody's heads. That's not what this post is about, though. Since I decided to take a little break from my day job and decompress, I found an activity that relaxes me, and reminds me of my earliest days writing software. First I'd like to describe what my earliest paid software gig was like. Then I'll talk about a personal project I worked on back in 2012, and then another that I'm working on now. Memory Lane: QANIMATE Back in my High School days, I worked on a project called CUPS, "Consortium of Upper-level Physics Software". You can still find traces of it online . The piece I wrote is QANIMATE , although they did misspell my last name in the author attribution! I worked with Ron Stoner at BGSU  over the course of a summer. Essentially it was an internship, an educational opportunity...
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Location: Tacoma, WA, USA
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