Well, we're back

The journey home for Denvention was tedious but we arrived on time. Immigration was over in about 2% as long as in the USA - but I think that most countries allow their own citizens to return home with much less delay and officialdom than they allow tourists in.

Science fiction conventions (and events such as Oxonmoot) are the longest sustained periods when, it seems to me, I am among people with whom it is possible to have a relaxed conversation without, for example, having to figure out what part of what I think of as a common cultural background they won't have any referent for. It is part of the relatively small proportion of the year I don't feel that I am living among aliens, sometimes of questionable rationality.

Since I am techie all through just like the lettering in Blackpool rock, it also helps that I don't get the impression from those who are not themselves involved in science or technology that is is somehow beneath them. That cannot be said, on average, of RL.

We made a couple of new friends, one of whom is on LJ (hi wouldyoueva {fx: waves}). I got books signed by Charlie Stross and Tanya Huff, and have enough to read that I now need a reading holiday. I first started reading Charlie Stross' fiction because he spoke interestingly on panels at Eastercon. With Tanya Huff I started by reading the first two Confederation novels in a single volume, then found the Vicki Nelson/Henry Fitzroy series, and found that she is interesting on panels, and manages both to be insightful and make me laugh.

Birthday greetings

Happy Birthday to:

and

Biological artificial intelligence

Here is an interesting news report about cultured neurones controlling a robot body. It is certainly interesting, specially because neurones simulated in software will be given the same tasks, and this should lead to a greater understanding of what neurones do, even if not so much of how they do it.

Is it creepy? I am not sure, but probably not at this stage. After all, I swat insects that bite or sting, and I believe they have more neurones. However, this does raise the interesting question: At what stage, if ever, could a grouping of cultured neurones possibly become conscious (if we can discover what consciousness actually is) and at what stage, if ever, could it become an intelligent entity that should have legal rights?