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I've had this question since a child: if you have a strobe light, which flickers at the same frequency that your eyes capture information, will you see the ligh

by RevRal 17y ago

I've had this question since a child: if you have a strobe light, which flickers at the same frequency that your eyes capture information, will you see the light as on or off? As usual, it's good to see that my questions weren't crazy (slash, stupid) like people thought. @human_v2 Are you into transhumanism and AI research?

human_v2 17y ago
I'm interested in both. Though I couldn't tell you the tenets of transhumanism, the little I've read leads me to believe I would agree with it. AI, on the other hand, is something I'm very interested in. As a Singularitarian, I believe AI research is the only thing we should be working on. The faster we get AI done, the faster we solve many other problems. Your questions aren't crazy these days. I've come to realize that nothing at all is impossible. I think people don't dream big enough anymore. Crazy dreams used to be "I want to be a rockstar" or something like that. I want to live forever and travel reality, like the guy in Star Trek: TNG, s1e07
- daeken 17y ago
  I agree that AI is going to push us forward to places we've never even considered before (being a strong supporter of the Singularity myself), but I think focusing on AI is wrong. I think that, like most big things, strong AI will come by accident. Someone will be working on something orthogonal and they'll stumble upon the key to strong AI. Hopefully that'll happen sooner rather than later, as it's very important, I just don't think that sort of thing can be focused on in and of itself and succeed.
sp332 17y ago
Your retinas are sensitive to light because light causes certain molecules (rhodopsin, I think) to change form and release energy. This chemical energy builds up in your photoreceptive cells and is then released as a neural signal. In other words, you would just see the light dimly, same as if the strobe were going really fast. What's interesting is if it's going a little slower than the fastest your eye can make out - the light seems to turn on and off slowly as the strobe and your eye go in and out of phase.
- RevRal 17y ago
  Thank you.

by RevRal 17y ago

human_v2 17y ago

I'm interested in both. Though I couldn't tell you the tenets of transhumanism, the little I've read leads me to believe I would agree with it. AI, on the other hand, is something I'm very interested in. As a Singularitarian, I believe AI research is the only thing we should be working on. The faster we get AI done, the faster we solve many other problems. Your questions aren't crazy these days. I've come to realize that nothing at all is impossible. I think people don't dream big enough anymore. Crazy dreams used to be "I want to be a rockstar" or something like that. I want to live forever and travel reality, like the guy in Star Trek: TNG, s1e07

daeken 17y ago
I agree that AI is going to push us forward to places we've never even considered before (being a strong supporter of the Singularity myself), but I think focusing on AI is wrong. I think that, like most big things, strong AI will come by accident. Someone will be working on something orthogonal and they'll stumble upon the key to strong AI. Hopefully that'll happen sooner rather than later, as it's very important, I just don't think that sort of thing can be focused on in and of itself and succeed.

sp332 17y ago

Your retinas are sensitive to light because light causes certain molecules (rhodopsin, I think) to change form and release energy. This chemical energy builds up in your photoreceptive cells and is then released as a neural signal. In other words, you would just see the light dimly, same as if the strobe were going really fast. What's interesting is if it's going a little slower than the fastest your eye can make out - the light seems to turn on and off slowly as the strobe and your eye go in and out of phase.

RevRal 17y ago
Thank you.