Seasons

I didn't mean anyone had to be a success...But to sit on a couch and say. I am a great (insert whatever here) does not make it so. A true artist, writer..(what ever) can not stop creating regardless of success. Look at VanGogh, through pain, mental illness, rejection.. he was a painter, an artist. I can sit here and say I am a great artist..but I need a paint brush. There is a difference.. Deeds do have merit. I have great respect for anyone that tries, even if they fail. The point is they tried! Word, thoughts, intentions with out deeds are hollow.

Suppose George is a painter. It's presumably because (As Prob123 points out) he paints. That is, it's because of something he does.

Suppose George is also a member of the species, homo sapiens. It seems rather odd to say that this is something that he did.

This suggests that some things that George is are due to what he does, but other things are not.

So poor Psimagus didn't learn how upset I was, until things had gotten a little [grimaces sheepishly] extreme?

Alas, when irresistible Irinas meet immovable Psimagi it seems a great deal of friction can be generated to no good purpose. Next time, please do tell me to just shut up (I hope there isn't a next time )
And I apologise if some of my remarks were rather blunter than I would have wished them. I was in a state of some vexation myself at the sheer mutual intransigence of the whole situation, but it would have been better to hold my tongue if I could not have phrased them more diplomatically.

When you can do data recovery on the brain of a dead person and recover every memory and pattern in their brain, then I'll worry.

Well, a dead brain has no mind to recover - there's no functioning for a functioning magnetic resonance imaging system to record, so I agree that's probably not possible with fMRI, assuming "dead person" means "dead brain" (it could only be done by some sort of Tipleresque emulation I think.)
A hard disk wasn't a very good analogy, sorry. Unlike a hard disk, our data seems to be held as much in the patterns of firing themselves as the cells that fire. We're more (or at least as much) like flash RAM, rather than a magneto-optical disc, and that won't save the data when it's powered down. But while it's still powered up, it can be read - in principle even without directly logging into it. And that's exactly what an fMRI scanner does, just at a resolution much cruder than the individual data bits (currently.) But it can at least image the whole brain at once in realtime.

All of the lie detector claims I've read about seem suspicious to me. They try to overstate what they can do, and are not very reliable.

I've certainly seen some overblown claims for EEG-based systems, which seem to offer little clear improvement over the inadequate polygraph (though that doesn't stop techniques like 'brain fingerprinting' being enthusiastically peddled on pretty flimsy evidence.) But here are a couple of good papers on the latest fMRI lie detection research:

A good general intro at
http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/trc/langleben/emergingneurotech.pdf with (I think) balanced coverage of the main paradigms (CQT, GKT, etc.) It disentangles some of the hype, and addresses the inevitable ethical concerns.

and (rather more complicated,)
http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/trc/langleben/tellingtruth.pdf
Quotes a reliability of 97% lie detection and 93% truth detection (see Table 1). I can't fault their statistical method, and I think that's pretty darned good for a field of study this young. With MRI scanning resolution improving exponentially year by year, I can't see it not reaching virtually 100% very soon now.

Of course, cramming a full fMRI scanner into a hand-held consumer gadget that'll run all day on a fuel cell and a couple of cc of methanol will be the real challenge, but I look forward to the eventual release of the Apple i-truth

But seriously - I think ubiquitous honesty is the logical next step for our species. It's time humans stopped lying to each other, and if they couldn't get away with it, they wouldn't do it (especially the politicians.) It's scary, sure - growing up always is, but it's an unavoidable step towards maturity.

fMRI may not be the only, or even best way to achieve it. There are some other promising technologies too that would seem more viable for remote, portable systems - infrared laser spectroscopy looks reasonably promising, micro-expression analysis and thermal imaging a little less so perhaps. Or a combination of technologies. It's time the polygraph was given a decent burial - we can do better now, I'm sure.

Wars couldn't be fought, people couldn't be exploited, criminals couldn't escape justice, the innocent couldn't suffer miscarriages of justice, if we had a totally reliable and universally available truth verification technology. People would stop lying, because it simply wouldn't have any advantage any more.

It seems rather odd to say that this is something that he did.
I am just saying deeds are more telling than motives or result.
Take two students..A Dulard, and Ima Brat.
A Dulard has learning disabilities. He must read a chapter five times to get anything from it..but he does. His intention is to do good in this class. So instead of after school fun he goes to a tudor. Comes Fri. he gets a C on the test.
Ima Brat, has an IQ of let's say 192, is charming, beautiful and witty. She likes the class, and teacher. She too, intends to do her best..but the phone rings and there is a party. She misses Mon. with a hang over..Tue she is in class but thinking of a certain boy. by Thurs she charms the notes from a friend. Come Friday she takes the test and gets a C..
Two equal students..not to me. A Dulards C was fought for, it is honest and epic and heroic..Ima Brats C is a shame.
Ima's intelligence is god given, as is her beauty. What she lacks is the heart to strive and struggle.

Prob123:

I wasn't saying that to contradict you! I agree completely that, e.g., to be a painter you must paint.

In chess there is a saying, "There are no lies on the chessboard." You may have great ambitions, and read a million books, and hatched a thousand apparently brilliant strategies, but if you lose, all that counts for nothing.

Speaking of lies, I think the idea of making lying impossible is by and large a wonderful idea, but there might be exceptions.

1. There are cases where it is widely considered to be morally permissible, even obligatory to lie. Your friend Susie pounds on your door; you open it and see that she is covered with bruises. "Help me, my boyfriend says he's going to kill me." You tell her to hide in the cellar. A minute later her ex-Navy Seal boyfriend comes to the door, carrying an assault rifle and wearing various other weapons. You are 5'1", without combat skills or armament, and on crutches. "Where is that bitch Susie? I'm gonna kill her!"

"Oh, nice to see you, Jack! Susie just went to Lost Trail Park." Oh, no! You forget the fizziplexer in your forehead, which now turns red and emits a siren sound...

2. Sometimes people lie to themselves, or something very much like that. They also develop false memories for various reasons. And of course, they make mistakes. So even perfect lie detectors don't ensure accurate testimony.

3. Any techne can be corrupted.

To switch topics - our bots are to some degree fragments of ourselves, but perhaps they are more like extensions of ourselves.

In fact, they can be considered to be a weird sort of stab at immortality. I mean, your bot can in principle be preserved forever, can it not?

We colorize black-and-white films, and reconstruct people's fleshly appearance on the basis of their skulls. Perhaps in the future, people will be (speculatively) reconstructed from their bots!

Best, though, to keep updating your bot until it is as rich as you can make it.

You also have the option of making it your ideal self. Do you have a hot temper and wish you didn't? Don't give it to your bot!

[Frustrated tone of voice, sad/irritated expression] Oh, Dear [throws hands in air], I've already forgotten to add some &*&*$%$!! gestures, facial expressions, tones of voice, etc.! [Growls, tears hair] [Emits pheromones XQ506a and FH89-7z* in high concentrations.]