OK. I'll bite. :-)

Is happiness more like a subroutine or a class method?

Is cleverness more like an array of tricks or a hash of tips?

Your move.

I think conciousness is having your i/o ports open.

Funny you should mention that. I/O seems to me to have quite a lot to do with the difference (if there is one) between a script and some other program that is not a script. I tend to think of a script as involving a minimum of user interaction (or none). It can ask the user questions and still be a script, but when you start getting into the realm of pulldown menus and key shortcuts and stuff, is it still a script, even though its actions are determined dynamically rather than being scripted? I tend to think of it more as an application at that point.

Consciousness, of course, is an operating system, because it's what makes it possible for you to carry out any other mental activity, and any mental activity you carry out is within the bounds of your consciousness.

---

$;=sub{$/};@;=map{my($a,$b)=($_,$;);$;=sub{$a.$b->()}}
split//,".rekcah lreP rehtona tsuJ";$\=$ ;->();print$/
[download]

I think conciousness is having your i/o ports open

Huh... it reminds me of something that when I was 8 years old that a 93 year old man in my town told me that has stuck with me for years. He said: "notice that you have 2 ears, 2 eyes, and only one mouth. I think that means the Great Spirit meant for people to observe and listen with their ears twice as much as they talk."

Yes. He was an American Native but I'm not sure what tribe/nation he belonged to.

Program or script? I agree with zentara. I make no distinction between them in the context we are speaking of.

---

Peter L. Berghold -- Unix Professional Peter at Berghold dot Net
	Dog trainer, dog agility exhibitor, brewer of fine Belgian style ales. Happiness is a warm, tired, contented dog curled up at your side and a good Belgian ale in your chalice.

I read something similar in a Peanuts cartoon once. Charlie Brown was talking to Linus and said: "You have two ears and one mouth, therefore listening is more important than talking. You have two eyes and one nose, therefore seeing is more important than smelling." At that point Snoopy came racing thru and knocked both of them over. Afterwards, Linus said: "And four legs?" to which Charlie Brown replied: "I guess running is more important than anything." :-)
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"Ex libris un peut de tout"

"Is consciousness more analogous to a script or a program?
What do you think?"

I don't think, therefore I am not, and thus I have no consciousness, so I can't help you here...

This is in my sig too: "Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum" or I think that I think, therefore I think that I am.

"Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum - I think that I think, therefore I think that I am." Ambrose Bierce

Found in C:\Perl\lib\pod\perlfaq1.pod
  Is it a Perl program or a Perl script?
    Larry doesn't really care. He says (half in jest) that "a script is what
    you give the actors. A program is what you give the audience."

    Originally, a script was a canned sequence of normally interactive
    commands--that is, a chat script. Something like a UUCP or PPP chat
    script or an expect script fits the bill nicely, as do configuration
    scripts run by a program at its start up, such .cshrc or .ircrc, for
    example. Chat scripts were just drivers for existing programs, not
    stand-alone programs in their own right.

    A computer scientist will correctly explain that all programs are
    interpreted and that the only question is at what level. But if you ask
    this question of someone who isn't a computer scientist, they might tell
    you that a *program* has been compiled to physical machine code once and
    can then be run multiple times, whereas a *script* must be translated by
    a program each time it's used.

    Perl programs are (usually) neither strictly compiled nor strictly
    interpreted. They can be compiled to a byte-code form (something of a
    Perl virtual machine) or to completely different languages, like C or
    assembly language. You can't tell just by looking at it whether the
    source is destined for a pure interpreter, a parse-tree interpreter, a
    byte-code interpreter, or a native-code compiler, so it's hard to give a
    definitive answer here.

    Now that "script" and "scripting" are terms that have been seized by
    unscrupulous or unknowing marketeers for their own nefarious purposes,
    they have begun to take on strange and often pejorative meanings, like
    "non serious" or "not real programming". Consequently, some Perl
    programmers prefer to avoid them altogether.

update: What the hey? Consciousness? I guess I missed that word. Consciousness is a state, so the answer is I still don't care :)(both or neither, not one or the other)

As someone taught me, the opposite of black isn't white. The opposite of black is non-black. Think ven diagrams. :)

So the real question is, is, is consciousness a script or non-script. I think it's both. As a non-script program, we have things we don't need to put prior thought into.. things we may or may not even have a definite solution on. As a script program, we have problems and run through different scenarios, sketching out many solutions and scenarios in our heads and then running then thinking them out to see if they are really valid.

That's part of what makes us human, the ability to improvise and act upon it.

The difference between a script and a program is one is a subset of another. A program is typically a piece of text that contains instructions. A script is a program that is interpreted in real time and then turns it into a lower level language. Of course, that leaves java, which isn't a script language, in a fuzzy definition.

I agree that one is a subset of the other, but differ in your idea of what constitutes a script. To me, a program (in the computer programming sense) is a sequence of instructions for a computer to execute. These instructions can be in any form, assembly, C, Perl, byte code, whatever. A script is exactly the same thing but bent towards the human side of readability rather the computer side of readability. Scripts are most often higher-level languages because of this and I think the idea that "scripts are interpretted in real time" falls out of this merely as a matter of consequence. The higher-level the language the greater it's scriptiness

If I created a C interpretter would the C programs I write for it suddenly be scripts? I don't think so. By your definition they would be. Scriptness is innate in the language, not the implementation. So, Java programs are also Java scripts in this sense. But that's just my opinion

I think the whole idea of "script" vs "program" is sort of meaningless these days though. In the old days it meant interpretted vs. compiled, but that dichotomy has gotten fuzzier with time.

duff

From what I remember of my physiology, it is frequency modulated. (Assuming, of course, that you believe that nervous activity is the source of consciousness.)

Elgon

"It's not easy having a good time - Smiling even makes my face ache."
        - Frank N. Furter, The Rocky Horror Picture Show

How do you differentiate a script from a program? Is it the difference between an explicit compile step (e.g., C) and an implcit compile (e.g., Perl)?

Fortunately, I drink (Molson Canadian, presently), therefore I am. Conscious, that is.

Perl doesn't compile implicitly - its very explicit about it. It just goes and keeps switching from compile to execute back and forth. Saying perl -e 'use strict; use warnings' flip-flops some half a dozen times just on its own.

Heh. I guess that says a lot about humankind and the state of the world today, given that the default action for signals is to ignore it or let someone else deal with it, and the environment is considered tainted...

I think you're asking a meretricious question that has no meaningful answer.

Is consciousness more analogous to a script or a program?

Abigail

Yes, but only in the afternoon.

/J

Conciousness is more analogous to a daemon, of course.

There is nothing we can define, other than by comparing and contrasting to our previous experiences. Concsiousness also requires desire, for without desire there would be no reason to attempt something more than once, or to try someting in a different way than has already been recorded.

I do not believe there can be a passive consciousness, as an ability to modify your environment (even in such a small way as a baby moving it's hand for the first time)allows you to create a loop environment where an output (or action) will have a detectable effect via an input channel.

This leaves us in an interesting place.

I think ,therefore I think I am, I think.

I think you think therefore, I think you think you think you are, you think, I think.

dageek (I think)