What are your big ideas?

[Spenner]

Do you have any big ideas you wish to share? Things you want to make, concepts you've been contemplating, etc. Be as detailed as you wish. My big idea is to make a program that crawls the web like google, only it's recognizing patterns of imagery based on certain strings (platypus is searched, collecting anatomy, colour schemes, textural elements, etc), the idea being that in the program you can ask it to render something. The program is self critical, and can reiterate it's criticism an infinite number of times, so once it has rendered something, it will give you 6 choices (for example, this could be customized though), and you click on the one which suits your request best. Then, you click "Continue" or "Done" and it will either rebuild your drawing, trying to fix imperfections (re-examining anatomy, relevance to the words you've requested to be rendered visually, etc), and to keep doing this and build a database of what looks better over time, with some rules in place in the vein of the program. The main idea is teaching the program to learn how to render things more closely to what the "average" person would desire, by having things just get computed and rendered and have it build up an arsenal of style, associating abilities, working with context, many things. In fact, so many variables are involved, that I don't know if it's possible to make such a program right now. BUT it's something I really want to work on, even if just small to begin with (creating 32x32px sprites of the requested strings at best for now). The dream idea is to have a program that can render files high resolution, quickly, and to be able to compute concepts that aren't even graspable by most people. Example: telling the program to compute "4D Panda bear juggling ice cream cones", and having it render what it can. Or perhaps something more interesting such as "A face with no face" to see what it would do. So yeah that's my crazy idea, what about you guys???

[TiredPhil]

I had a few ideas about the non existence of time, and how we live in one dimension, but it has been worded elsewhere.

[Xei]

Cool thread, Spenner! That sounds really interesting, although it also sounds like it will be very difficult. You're basically talking about a program which has a semantic understanding of 'platypus', which brings you close to problems of Strong AI. Neural networks are used in research into this kind of thing; I saw a video a few months ago of I think a Japanese research team, who made a program which trawled Google to train a neural network to give it a visual concept of a cat. My 'big ideas', though they're more like chief interests, are in philosophy, epistemology, theory of mind, and AI. I share Wittgenstein's conviction that almost all philosophy is the result of a misuse of language which dissolves upon proper analysis, though I don't follow his diagnosis of proper analysis. That's much closer to Hume, who is probably my favourite person. I think pretty much everything we call knowledge and intelligence is pattern recognition and manipulation, and philosophical confusions dissolve when they properly consider this.

[dutchraptor]

An idea that's been going through my mind is the enormous potential of a sentient machine that understands human behavior perfectly. The main application I had in mind for a machine like this was some form of shared lucid dreaming. Imagine if two people want a specific universe in which they can battle or explore, or anything really. Programming that would be close to impossible, as would making it comfortable to play. Imagine though if we could link up with a computer who had both the traits of a human and conventional computer, sentient and with similar motives to a human but with the ability to compute like a computer. If we had some sort of Brain computer interface, one player could link to this entity and script a world for himself by telling the computer what he wants. Both players would connect in a dream state with the BCI to the computer who would bring them to the world with all the rules they made earlier for themselves. Not only would it be an incredible role playing experience, the world would be fantastically diverse because a "brain" is pretty much creating everything in it. The computer understands how to make amazing creatures, worlds and history for the players to enjoy within a few hours due to it's high processing power. A step further would be to incorporate this into the brain itself. The potential is so huge, imagine what a human could do when linked with a good processor. All of this is just me rambling on of course, I'm just pondering on these ideas. I believe that what I speak of isn't even that far away. I'm sort of a believer in the singularity event which might happen later this century. With all the greatest mind's together we should surely be able to create a recursive script that will change the future of mankind. As crazy as it sounds, I don't think a world with these sentient machines is too far off into the future.

[Karloky]

My big idea is to perform astral projection and to share that knowledge with people who deserve it.

[TiredPhil]

Latest idea. Use some method to improve L'W'L' "Learning Whilst Lucid" Possible audio input, Tones, Beats, Vocal etc Started this one yesterday, and have started a thread for feedback.

[twanchaos]

My big idea and most recent project is conducting an experiment to gain results that will go towards this equation im attempting to create. this equation is going to be about the relation of people. i know im not giving much detail but im in class right now so lol ya but any feedback or advice would be nice. like if oyur good at math or solving for things that arent there.

[DeletePlease]

Reforming the socio-political culture of Canada. Not quite sure how I'll do it, I just know there are some fundamental flaws in our system that go overlooked. I'm always complaining about it's current state, figure I may as well take the initiative and put myself in a position to change it. And that means going back to school .-.

[tropicalbreeze]

face my fears. i just hope i have the courage to go through with it.

[tommo]

I had an idea for the Oculus Rift. I'll probably never go through with it now, or by the time I have, someone else will have already done it. Basically it is a "game" where you just face your fears. Since it is so realistic in the Rift, it will be easy to believe you are really at the place. So I would have environments like standing in front on stage in a lecture hall, and you could load your speech in to the game and it would be held in front of you in "your" hands. Then also things like fear of heights, so just have building/mountain top areas etc. maybe parachuting for more advanced. I think this would be extremely beneficial. It's been proven to work but is currently confined to laboratory settings because it was previously too expensive. But now with consumer VR, it is achievable. If only I had enough money for someone to program/design it for me. My other big idea is a chain of Isolation Tank centres around major cities.

[DeletePlease]

I had an idea for the Oculus Rift. I'll probably never go through with it now, or by the time I have, someone else will have already done it. Basically it is a "game" where you just face your fears. Since it is so realistic in the Rift, it will be easy to believe you are really at the place. So I would have environments like standing in front on stage in a lecture hall, and you could load your speech in to the game and it would be held in front of you in "your" hands. Then also things like fear of heights, so just have building/mountain top areas etc. maybe parachuting for more advanced. I think this would be extremely beneficial. It's been proven to work but is currently confined to laboratory settings because it was previously too expensive. But now with consumer VR, it is achievable. If only I had enough money for someone to program/design it for me. My other big idea is a chain of Isolation Tank centres around major cities. That seems like it'd be extremely useful, especially under the influence of cannabis (since the high would make it even more immersive and convincing).