I have 1 friend that finds that impossible. He knows worlds more than I about software, so I’ll give him that. Personally though, while I do think this will eventually happen, I have to chalk this announcement to research grant fishing. 10 years is far enough away to think that anything can be possible, but close enough to think about planning for an investor interested in applications.

Most importantly, the claim is shocking enough to attract discussion of what to do with such a device/mind/person/thing. How much of what we are is based on where we came from? What exactly constitutes sentience? What biases would such a device with experiences of X have verses experiences of Y? Would it be ethical to reformat such a device if its programming becomes unusable to the owner? Would such a device tend toward anything religious in nature?

God did not make it, man did. So then if we take that to mean it does not deserve respect, would biological human clones deserve respect? There are decades of literature on this, but these issues still aren’t resolved. Is it possible these issues still won’t be resolved when the time comes to interact with such a being?

How would this impact the workforce? I’ve blogged in the past about the ‘knowledge economy’ and how the truly valuable resource in such an economy is not what you know, but how you use it. In a world of unlimited access to information, sound judgment becomes the resource of value. Will that ‘judgment’ be replicable with an artificial (programmable?) human brain?

How do you define sentience?

“Government is law – law which allows society to grow and flourish. Its terms and specific properties derive from an anterior social reality, not the other way around. It is a set of “ground rules” or agreed upon procedures, found in the course of their history to be reasonable and conducive to the general happiness or those whom it binds. Even the meaning of the word “liberty” is restricted by these rules.” – Mel E. Bradford

When Kant defined “rights” he was basically saying, “There are no divine rights”. I challenge you to find one in The Bible (or any other religious book). All rights are political in nature and not abstract, divine, or inalienable. Jefferson was one of our country’s greatest thinkers, but his words in the Declaration of Independence were dangerously wrong. If we have the divine right to “life” why do we die? If we have a divine right to liberty, why did God allow his “chosen people” to be dragged off into slavery? Remember, the word “inalienable” means “can not be taken away for any reason”. I think that it’s “self-evident” that Jefferson was wrong.

Rights come from political institutions and are only valid for as long as the political institution survives. An example of the real right is the “right to drive an automobile”. The government says that if you obey the traffic laws, pass a test to show your ability to drive correctly, and pay your car taxes it will extend to you the “right to drive a car”. If you fail to do any of those three things that “right” is taken away from you. It even can be extended to economics. If I agree to give the guy at the counter $7.00 at Burger King, he extends to me the “right” to eat his double meat whopper with cheese, fires, and a coke.

The problem today is that “abortion, homosexuality, and other debaucheries” actually are rights in this country today. They are legally agreed upon contracts between the citizens and the government through legal elections and appointments. If you look carefully at what Bradford is saying he’s saying that those rights are not founded in history or in long held social mores. They are in fact “innovations” that contradict the long standing position of this culture (which was founded on Protestant values that have been held by Northern Europeans for over 500 years). That is why the country is collapsing. With the election of Obama and the liberal democrats, we have thrown gasoline on the fire.

There are three possible consequences to this. First, Obama and the liberals continue to rule for an extended period of time. That will result in the complete fall of this country. The liberal way just doesn’t work. You can’t murder the tax base and work force at a rate of 1.5 million a year and survive very long. You can’t spend future generation’s prosperity into the fifth or sixth future generation without wrecking the economy to the extent that it will take 100s of years to recover. These people are a complete fraud. They parade around with the “peace and love and diversity” motto tattooed on their chest, but in reality they are more prolific mass murderers than Hitler, Stalin, and Mao combined.

The second alternative is the way of the fundamentalist Christians. These people are not really Christians, they’re Pharisees. They worship the rules. Unfortunately, their way does work. It’s only cost is freedom. Frankly, I would much rather have Obama making the laws than Eric Farel.

The last alternative is the way of the founders. Have a set of laws that represent the collective history of our culture. That will never happen. How many people do you know who really understand what freedom really is? Looking at the polls from the latest election, I’d say about three percent of the population. Sadly, that means that the third option has no chance. My best guess is that Obama is the final heartbeat of the left, and the hard right will take over for good. This won’t happen with an election. The left owns the media, the entertainment industry, the courts, the public schools, and the universities. None of those institutions answer to the voters. The change will occur violently, and freedom and liberty will be the final victim.

Now reread the original statement by Bradford. It is in keeping with the views of Burke, Kirk, Weaver, and Adams.

I’ll confess, if you have been reading this blog for a while you may remember this video. I found this video again surfing Youtube and it seemed to me as possibly the most relevant video that I could post for today.
I last posted this video on January 30, 2008, so today is almost exactly 1 year.

Enjoy.