The Universe is written using ASP

I know! I have taken the back off it and I can see all the workings. And yes it does use uncertainty generators but you can never either be sure where they are or what they are doing. That sounds like a few people I know.

I don't really think that the universe is written in anything. It's like all those robots you see on sci-fi programmes where the insides have electronics and wires. No real android type robot would look like the inside of a TV if you took th back off. It would be goo and man-made simulations of biological components. The first artifically intelligent android with anything like a human ability will be 'grown' and evolve intelligence in the way we do. Again we may have that undefinable limit at which the physical makeup of intelligent structures links into the conciousness of the being that it becomes. Any other solution will produce an 'empty' headed automaton no matter how much it knows. There are certain things which require far more intelligence than anything we can imagine, like reading body-language and moods or comtemplating contemplations. Thinking of everything and nothing at the same time. No matter what I have thought of over the years, I have never 'blown the processor'. I can contemplate anything even if I can't understand everything. I know what I don't know or can't know. I don't often watch Star Trek TNG but I caught the episode 'The Offspring' the other day in which Data created an android daughter called Lal who seemed to have developed emotions far beyond those of her father. In the end she 'died' and to be honest it was the most poignant thing I have seen on Star-Trek even though data didn't have the emotional equipment to deal with it in the way that I as a viewer did. I still don't get the idea of why Data can't use contractions such as 'Haven't' instead of 'Have Not'. All that brain power and he can't modify his speech enough to use a tiny little contraction. Sounds like a sort of mini Deus-Ex-Machina to clarify a point. We get the impression here in the UK that most Americans have to have everything explained to them (Witness 'The Madness of King George' Rather than '...George III' just in case it was mistaken for a second sequel) but when they can produce drama and comedy of the depth of Star-Trek and Frasier (and even certain parts of friends) they must be doing something right. Come to think of it most British Sit-com is very low-level compared with the likes of Frasier or Seinfeld. The last Comedy I can think of where you had to think to any great extent was Yes Minister though I was always slightly aware that I spoke more like Sir Humphrey than Jim Hacker. Of course this lack of cerebral comedy may be due to the fact the British Comedy with any depth tends to be turned into hour-long drama rather than half-hour sitcom.

I have just found this page of the Art in Malvern Calendar for 2002. The picture Elgar Country is exactly as I remember the views from the hills, absolutely beautiful. The picture has a depth I havn't seen in a painting before. So many times in pictures like these, all the objects in the view have been scaled to make them visible which tends to flatten the picture; this is just a straight image of what the painter saw without being a photo. Just sit back and imagine what you can hear and smell and feel. Time to finish before I fall asleep.