Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

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close up view of silver coin in hand of gambler scratching lottery card

The Two-Sided Lottery Card Paradox and Infinity

Assuming the infinite often leads to ridiculous conclusions.
Here’s the takeaway. Infinity does not exist in reality. There are not an infinite number of parallel universes. It's thought candy. Read More ›
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The little kid is sitting alone on the sofa and looking in his phone

Moving Life Online is Making Us Depressed

The phone-based childhood robs kids developmentally, says Jonathan Haidt
The data seems to point essentially to one thing: the shift to living our lives online. Read More ›
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blue sky ocean

Are Near-Death Experiences Just Another Branch of Research Now?

We should hope so because there are a number of interesting allied research areas that would be better studied without preexisting prejudice against NDEs
In a discussion at Psychology Today, a philosopher notes that her dissertation supporting the reality of near-death experiences was received without hostility. Read More ›
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Ideas escape from brain of pensive african man

Are Mind vs. Brain Issues Going Mainstream?

Capitol Hill lobby HillFaith has been sponsoring discussion of the immateriality of the mind in recent years
What feels remarkable is that people with an interest in political issues have even started to ask these questions. We used to be told they never would. Read More ›
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transparent invisible person on the city street. ai generated

Invisibility Isn’t Science Fiction; It’s Interesting Engineering

Things are visible only when light strikes them but light can sometimes be manipulated so as not to strike them, with remarkable results.

Invisibility is one of those interesting concepts that started out as imagination: What if I were invisible? Or— in the hands of a storyteller — what if my character were invisible? Tolkien famously made it a power granted by the Ring in The Lord of the Rings. The concept is used in science fiction too, for example, in the form of the cloaking device: However, as science fiction writer Douglas Adams (1952–2001) noted satirically in Life, the Universe, and Everything, in everyday life, “The Somebody Else’s Problem field is much simpler and more effective, and what’s more can be run for over a hundred years on a single torch battery. This is because it relies on people’s natural disposition not Read More ›

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Leo Tolstoy

Anna Karenina and How to Read Long Books

"One chapter at a time" is actually how books like Tolstoy's were intended to be read.

Anna Karenina is considered one of the greatest novels of the 19th century, alongside War and Peace, penned by the same author, Leo Tolstoy. The novel, which Tolstoy regarded as his “first,” is the story of an alluring young woman who commits adultery with a military man, and the shroud of relationships surrounding her life and fate. Reading Anna Karenina is like going back in time to 19th-century Russia and yet remaining rooted in the experiences, conflicts, and temptations that define all eras and contexts. As my former teacher said, it is “a rapturous sonata of a novel. One foot in time and place, one in the eternal. The human heart in conflict with itself, like Faulkner said.” (When asked Read More ›

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desert landscape with sand being shaped into sharp dunes by the wind.

Dune, Part Two: Paul Becomes a Hero — Very Reluctantly

Some departures from the book work better than others. The “reluctant hero” trope simplifies a complex political situation but at a cost

Last time, we discussed the opening of Dune’s sequel, ending with Jessica drinking from the Water of Life. Already, she has experienced a number of changes. At first, they don’t seem to alter the story much; however, once Jessica becomes the Fremens’ Reverend Mother, the alterations start to steer the plot further and further from the book. Introducing a conflict about the Bene Gesserit religion These consequential changes first appear when Paul is waiting for his mother to wake up from a comatose state after drinking the Water of Life. In the sequel, the Fremen are divided about whether or not the Bene Gesserit religion is true. This was not the case in the book. There might’ve been some debate Read More ›

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smartphone coiled metal wire in the hands of a man, gray-green background, censorship of social networks. cancel cultural ban, erase

Yes, TikTok is Bad. But is a Ban the Answer?

This might be the way censorship sneakily invades.

TikTok is addictive, and could be a national security threat, but should the government ban it? Or might doing so set dangerous precedent to ban other social media platforms with less rationale? A TikTok ban could lead to a domino effect of other bans. A new bill passed the U.S. House of Representatives that would effectively ban TikTok, unless the platform is sold, but the terms and conditions of the bills are vague and could be easily leveraged to justify further bans. Maxwell Zeff explains, Outside of banning TikTok, this bill is anything but clear. An app or website must meet two qualifications to be banned. First, the app must be a large platform that allows users to create profiles for sharing Read More ›

physics-or-mathematical-equations-on-a-universe-decorative-led-background-give-the-impression-of-interstellar-space-travel-stockpack-adobe-stock
Physics or mathematical equations on a universe decorative LED background give the impression of interstellar space travel.

Fine-Tuning of Universe Makes a Top Neuroscientist “Very Hopeful”

Allen Institute’s Christof Koch talks about the assumptions underlying his consciousness theory — which led many other neuroscientists to try to Cancel him
When one of the world’s most prominent research neuroscientists goes off the classic materialist script — and gets away with it — things are changing. Read More ›
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Closed up image of a Female using TikTok application on a smartphone in home. 5 September, 2022. ChiangMai, Thailand.

Escaping the Dopamine Cartel

We can't even be bothered with "entertainment" anymore.
Ted Gioia investigates the impact of the "dopamine culture," our modern tendency to flit among tabs and scroll endlessly through fifteen-second-long video clips Read More ›
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ChatGPT Artificial Intelligence conversational chat bot by open ai using machine learning, Generative AI

At Chronicle of Higher Ed: Critical Thinking Isn’t Just Chat

Gary Smith and Jeffrey Funk test Big Tech’s chatbots for critical thinking skills before an academic audience — with sobering but often hilarious results
On a serious note, Smith and Funk stress that — despite chatbot buzz — we must both practice critical thinking skills and teach them to students. Read More ›
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Nuclear power plant.

Is Our World, Post-1950, Really a Geological Epoch?

Some earth scientists lobby for calling the past 75 years the Anthropocene epoch, giving it equal importance with the 16-million-year Upper Jurassic
Whether it’s good science terminology, the Anthropocene concept broadcasts so much cultural vibe that it may not just go away after a No vote. Read More ›
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Healthy retina, illustration

Grappling Honestly With Science’s Blind Spot

An astrophysicist, a theoretical physicist, and a philosopher all walk into a bar and say, “At the heart of science lies something we do not see that makes science possible” Um… yes!
In their essay, Blind Spot authors Frank, Gleiser, and Thompson seem to sense that dredging up pat materialist answers that don’t really work won’t help much. Read More ›
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Robot, chat bot, android and digital evolution of robotics. Future processor development technologies. 3D illustration of quantum cyberspace. AI and global data

About the claim that chatbot Claude 3 showed self-awareness…

Has anyone noticed the resemblance between the conviction that an AI project thinks like a human and that extraterrestrials are visiting us?
Just as extraterrestrials are Out There because we don’t want to think we are alone, chatbots are Becoming Human because we don’t want to feel we are unique. Read More ›
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Isolated children's toy against a blue texture background, teddy bear from childhood, an old pink hippo

Pink Dancing Hippos: Don’t Tell ChatGPT-4 Not to do Something

Can OpenAI fix this flaw in GPT4? Absolutely. Time will tell if they do or not.
Moral: Don’t ask GPT-4 to NOT do something. Chances are the current version might let you down. Read More ›
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Doctor and robotics research diagnose Human brains scan generative ai

If AI Speeds Up Science, Does It Risk Squashing Some Parts?

A Yale anthropologist and a Princeton psychologist warn of the dangers of overreliance on AI in science
Researchers could end up being constrained by the limits of what AI can do, cut off from what it can’t do, and possibly unaware of the embedded viewpoint. Read More ›
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Tourists jumping off a large rock ledge in Amoudi Bay on Santorini Island in Greece.

How Is Intentionality Embedded in the Universe?

All efforts to extinguish intentionality and morality only serve to further establish their inescapable reality
The conclusion we must reach by examining our own intentionality carefully is that it has an ultimate origin from a conscious being outside of our world. Read More ›
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mindful nature

Consciousness Observes Different Laws From Physics

At Closer to Truth, British philosopher and pastor Keith Ward provides an example to host Robert Lawrence Kuhn

Last week at Closer to Truth, host Robert Lawrence Kuhn interviewed British philosopher and pastor Keith Ward on “What’s the Stuff of Mind and Brain?” Ward is an idealist philosopher who “believes that the material universe is an expression or creation of a Supreme Mind, namely that of God’s.” In this excerpt, he explains how we can know that the mind is not simply what the brain does. One way is that the mind or consciousness functions according to different rules: Kuhn: [5:53] Keith, what is it that we need to combine with the brain to make this non material consciousness? Ward: [6:04] Well, you need — what Buddhists would say is — thoughts and feelings and sensations and perceptions. Read More ›

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Robot hand displays blue digital interface, wearing blue suit and helmet.

How Materialism Handicaps Us in Understanding AI’s Limits

Sabine Hossenfelder acknowledges AI’s limits, yet she is convinced that it will become conscious

In “Scientists warn of AI collapse,” theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder warns, “We’ve all become used to AI-generated art in the form of text, images, audio, and even videos. Despite its prevalence, scientists are warning that AI creativity may soon die. Why is that? What does this mean for the future of AI? And will human creativity be in demand after all? Let’s have a look.” She discusses the problem that chatbots and other generative AI create; they end up reprocessing and degrading their own information, essentially eating their own tails: [1:28] The more AI eats its own output the less variety the output has. For example in a paper from November, a group of scientists from France tested this for Read More ›

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sandstorm in the desert. Generative AI,

Dune Part Two Succeeds Brilliantly — But Dooms Plans for Part III

The difficulty is that the changes made for the film have warped the core story so much that it’s going to be nearly impossible to follow the source material from here on out.
For example, if the Bene Gesserits are the true power behind the throne, why do they need a Kwisatz Haderach to cement their power? Read More ›
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Artificial neuron in concept of artificial intelligence. Wall-shaped binary codes make transmission lines of pulses and/or information in an analogy to a microchip.

Wrestling with AI: Making More and Better Disciples

AI may have "knowledge," but it lacks wisdom.
Even if it were possible that AI reaches consciousness — it will never have the mind of Christ. Read More ›
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Abstract image of the brain in which synapses are represented as glowing lines symbolizing learning

Neuroscientist: How the Brain-as-Computer Myth Led Science Astray

Michael Merzenich explains neuroplasticity — how the brain organizes itself in detail — to Robert Lawrence Kuhn at Closer to Truth
The Dalai Lama asked Merzenich a question that cut to the heart of the question of the relationship between our brains and ourselves. Read More ›
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AI concept, humanoid robot with artificial intelligence, fictional woman android, generative AI

The Singularity — When We Merge With AI — Won’t Happen

Futurist predictions depend on the assumption that the human brain is like a machine, says, computer scientist Erik Larson. But it isn’t
Larson tells his EP podcast host that the real danger is that powerful AI in the hands of bad actors could bring down banking systems and cripple grids. Read More ›
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internet security and privacy challenges. Use a human eye and digital binary code to convey the idea of surveillance by cybercriminals.

We’re Slowly Learning About China’s Extensive Hacking Network

China’s state-backed hackers have embedded malware within U.S. programs used to manage clean drinking water, the power grid, and air traffic, among others
Hackers’ advantage: One of the biggest security weaknesses in U.S. digital networks and infrastructure is out-of-date, no-longer-supported technology. Read More ›
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Violation of law, law-breaking concept. Metal handcuffs on Canadian flag on black background top view

Canada Prepares Harsh New Online Harms Bill to Fight “Hate”

Canada is a comparatively peaceful country, so onlookers might puzzle over the assumption that draconian measures are needed to fight poorly defined “hate.”

Yesterday, I discussed the way in which Canadian government efforts to manage the news industry led to Canadians being restricted by Facebook from posting links to news media. Undeterred, the government now seeks to stamp out “hate”/“hate speech” in online media. The Online Harms bill, C-63, if enacted as proposed, according to a veteran free speech journalist, provides that “victims of ‘hate speech’ could be compensated up to $20,000.” Also, “a new stand-alone hate crime offence would be added to the criminal code allowing for penalties of up to life imprisonment.” It also provides for house arrest for people who, it is feared, “may commit a hate crime in future.” Related 2023 legislation (C-11) requires that all podcasters and streamers, Read More ›

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Mobile phone with blank screen with copy space and old books. Electronic book concept.

Jean Twenge: Gen Z Isn’t Reading

Zoomers were born into smartphones, not Shakespeare
As we are being hypnotized by fifteen-second soundbites, crafting the ability to attend to longer works of art will only become a rarer, but more valuable, skillset. Read More ›
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Conceptual Illustration of Sora, OpenAI's Text-to-Video AI

Sora: Life Is Not a Multiple-Choice Test

With Sora, as with other generative AI developments, some are quick to proclaim that artificial general intelligence has arrived. Not so fast.
The hallucinations are symptomatic of generative AI models’ core problem: they can’t identify output problems because they know nothing about the real world. Read More ›
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Ottawa Parliament Buildings Center Block with Peace Tower and Canadian flag

When Government Manages the News Business: Canada Tried That…

Any comprehensive censorship regime requires that the government begin by managing the news business
Canadians lost the right to post news links to Facebook and Instagram. And, amid media layoffs, Google did not give media the sum they hoped for. Read More ›
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Brain psychology mind soul and hope concept art, 3d illustration, surreal artwork, imagination painting, conceptual idea

Programmer: How We Know Computers Won’t Surpass the Human Mind

Winston Ewert points out that we can only devise a “halting detector” less powerful than the ones our own minds have
Ewert predicts that, while humans will get better at building artificial intelligence systems, we will never be able to match ourselves. Read More ›
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Human fetus with internal organs, 3d illustration

Confronting IVF: Human Embryos Are Persons With a Right to Life

We humans are persons even when we are non-sentient and dependent on others
IVF is the industrial manufacture of human beings. The right to life of the embryo is a bulwark against dehumanization for all. Read More ›
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Illustration of a Silhouette of a Guy Looking over a Cliff

Over a Cliff? It’s That Bad for Venture-Backed Startups?

Jeffrey Funk and Gary Smith think that much high-tech today is not producing value. Chatbots? Their “main successes have been in generating disinformation and phishing scams”
For example, journalist Matt Taibbi was stunned to learn from Gemini that he’d written controversial stories — that don’t exist. What’s the market for libel? Read More ›
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Lightbulb eureka moment with Impactful and inspiring artistic colourful explosion of paint energy

Programmers: Why Materialism Can’t Explain Human Creativity

Eric Holloway and Robert Marks explain why it’s unlikely that the mind that enables human creativity is merely the product of animal evolution
The total space-time information capacity of the universe falls significantly short of the ability to generate meaningful text of only a few hundred letters. Read More ›
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A team of surgeons performing brain surgery to remove a tumor.

Neuroscientist: Human Brain More Complex Than the Models Show

The weird “homunculus” — the way the brain maps the body — was pioneer neurosurgeons’ best guess nearly a century ago
We shouldn’t be surprised if the brain is more complex than could be known earlier. Most modern research into human beings is turning out that way. Read More ›
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Illustration of basic physics and mathematics formulas and galaxy in universe

Can Informational Realism Help Sort Out the Mind–Body Problem?

According to William Dembski, informational realism asserts that the ability to exchange information is the defining feature of reality
If information is “the relational glue that holds reality together,” the mind–body problem can be reframed in a more satisfactory way. Read More ›
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Vitro Fertilization. IVF with DNA strand. 3d illustration.

Are IVF Human Embryos “Children”? A Recent Court Decision

Neurologist Steven Novella claims that the Alabama Supreme Court ruling that they are “children” under the law “essentially referenced god”
The ruling not only did not reference God, it was meticulously based on precedent. So those who seek to remove protection from IVF embryos must lobby for that. Read More ›
astronomy-and-science-concept-elements-of-this-image-furnished-by-nasa-mathematical-and-physical-formulas-against-the-backdrop-of-a-galaxy-in-the-universe-space-background-ai-generated-stockpack-adobe-stock
Astronomy and science concept. Elements of this image furnished by NASA, Mathematical and physical formulas against the backdrop of a galaxy in the universe, Space background, AI Generated

Do New Findings Make Fine-Tuning of the Universe Harder to Deny?

To judge from this episode of Closer to Truth, cosmologists like Alan Guth are finding it harder than ever to rule out intelligent design of the universe

Although the Closer to Truth podcast (6:48 min) that aired last week is called “Alan Guth – Must the Universe Contain Consciousness?”, it actually doesn’t address consciousness. Rather, MIT cosmologist Alan Guth, originator of the widely accepted inflationary universe theory, mainly talks about alternatives to the Anthropic Principle in the study of our universe. As described in the podcast, the Anthropic Principle means the “apparent fine-tuning of some of the critical values in particle physics and cosmology,” which enables life on Earth, among other things. Readers may recall that in January, cosmologist Alexander Vilenkin told host Robert Lawrence Kuhn that if the universe were really fine-tuned, the cosmological constant should equal zero, not the currently accepted value of something slightly Read More ›

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dramatic sand storm in desert, background, digital art

Dune 1984 Offers A Strong Finish to a Unique Adaptation

I’d go as far as to say that, while not all of David Lynch’s adaptations worked, the film is, overall, better than the book
The rainstorm Lynch introduces at the end, implies, refreshingly, that there was more going on in Dune than just the plans of men. Read More ›
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Stop violence and abused children.traumatized children concept.

How One Woman’s Campaign Nearly Destroyed Pornhub

In 2020 it was the 10th most visited website on the internet, now just a shell of its former days
Mickelwait explained that shutting Pornhub down rather than merely forcing it to enact reforms is necessary because of how much damage has been wrought. Read More ›
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3d rendering of High Angle View Inside a Conference Hall

Why Do Universities Ignore Good Ideas?

Funding agencies see if the researcher is tenured or has already received funding. It's a vicious cycle.

Here is a recent assessment of 2023 Nobel Prize Winner Katalin Kariko: “Eight current and former colleagues of Karikó told The Daily Pennsylvanian that — over the course of three decades — the university repeatedly shunned Karikó and her research, despite its groundbreaking potential.” ‘Not of faculty quality’: How Penn mistreated Nobel Prize-winning researcher Katalin Karikó | The Daily Pennsylvanian (thedp.com) Another article claims that this occurred because she could not get the financial support to continue her research. Why couldn’t she get financial support? “You’re more likely to get grants if you’re a tenured faculty member, but you’re more likely to get promoted to tenure if you get grants,” said Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist at the New England Complex Read More ›

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遊ぶチンパンジーの子供

Why Humans Can’t “Share the Spotlight” With Tool-Using Animals

As the Ivy League war on human exceptionalism motors on, researchers’ thinking sometimes shorts out — and they don’t even notice

At Sapiens, Oxford archaeologist Michael Haslam and Harvard archaeologist Abigail Desmond offer a fascinating look at the way animals use tools. It’s marred by a mental “short circuit” (I am not sure of a better way to describe it) about human beings. They are not happy with human exceptionalism at all. For example, they write, “Archaeologists have long considered tool use to be an evolutionary milestone that distinguished our lineage from other animals. Humans were considered the technological species.” Indeed, their purpose in writing is to show us that it’s not so. Before we turn to their argument, let’s look at their claim about archaeologists’ views. If archaeologists indeed think that humans are “distinguished” from other animals, they have made Read More ›

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Businessman keeping the growth in economy

Is There a Solution to Low Quality Research in Science?

Molecular biologist Henry Miller and statistician Stanley Young explain why statistical techniques like meta-analysis won’t solve the basic problem
It doesn’t sound as though any solution that doesn’t tackle the basic honesty problem is likely to work. Meanwhile, the public should not be blamed for doubt. Read More ›
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Cute and little robot helper with artificial intelligence raising hand. Generative AI

Google Gemini Presents a Past That Never Happened

You can't trust a bot to give you a history lesson, turns out.
Walter Kirn tweeted recently: "Gemini AI is inventing damaging stories about people and figures I know. It is an automated false-witness weapon." Read More ›
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Two robots walking on the streets of an abandoned futuristic city on a rainy day, digital art style, illustration painting

Is AI the Triumph of Left-Brained Thinking? What Follows?

Psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist argues that it is and asks us to consider what its cultural lean toward the “left brain” is doing to us

Iain McGilchrist, psychiatrist and author of The Matter With Things (Perspectiva 2021), defends the left-brain/right-brain psychological distinction often made in psychology. But his view is far more careful and nuanced than what’s offered in the pop psych books on the flea market table. In an essay just published at First Things, which started out as a lecture delivered at the 2022 World Summit AI in Amsterdam, he warns against the growing AI dominance over our lives — which he interprets as left-brained: The things that used to alert us to the inadequacy of our reductionist theories are fading away. They were: the natural world; the sense of a coherent shared culture; the sense of the body as something we live, Read More ›

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Stock market diagram on LCD screen. Selective focus.

AI and Wall Street’s Hype Curve

Almost all new tech has a hype curve. Here are the stages.
Technologies that have surfed the hype curve include superconductivity, the Segway, cold fusion, information theory, Theranos, Piltdown man and string theory. Read More ›
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webinar, education online concept, video tutorial

Online Training: Real Education or Going Through the Motions?

Not all online trainings are bad. But many are procedural and pointless.
In some cases, I was convinced that the goal of the training was to pretend to convey information while not actually doing so.  Read More ›
this-is-exactly-what-heaven-looks-like-looking-over-the-top-of-a-blanket-of-gorgeous-pastel-coloured-fluffy-clouds-depicting-heavenly-lansdcape-background-ideal-for-a-spiritual-theme-stockpack-adobe-stock
This is exactly what heaven looks like - looking over the top of a blanket of gorgeous pastel coloured fluffy clouds depicting heavenly lansdcape background ideal for a spiritual theme

Could Our Minds Be Bigger Than Even a Multiverse?

The relationship between information, entropy, and probability suggests startling possibilities. If you find the math hard, a face-in-the-clouds illustration works too
This article has equal entropy to gibberish letters of the same length, yet it contains information and gibberish does not. Much follows from that fact. Read More ›
journalist-reporter-dedicated-storytellers-of-world-news-and-information-era-of-rapid-media-evolution-well-informed-microphone-tv-television-press-communication-role-online-stockpack-adobe-stock
journalist, reporter, dedicated storytellers of world, news and information, era of rapid media evolution, well-informed, microphone TV television press communication role online.

Why Mainstream Media Can No Longer Really Fight Censorship

Whether they realize it or not, by accepting funds in order to survive, the MSM will gradually become agencies of government

TV personalities — ones you might not have expected — have begun to notice the way mainstream media now drop the ball on news coverage. The usually apolitical TV psychologist Dr. Phil, for example, was recently holding forth to podcaster Joe Rogan on their inability to report honestly on many sensitive political subjects. Medical doctor Drew Pinsky, who has offered relationship advice in a number of media venues, is saying similar things. News about every cultural flashpoint now seems to be managed in the way that facts about COVID-19 were at the height of the pandemic scare. Why fight censorship if you can just censor yourself? An inevitable outcome of the strategic lack of curiosity among journalists is a marked Read More ›

hands-of-girl-sculpt-mug-with-ceramic-clay-on-potters-wheel-close-up-stockpack-adobe-stock
Hands of girl sculpt mug with ceramic clay on potter's wheel. close up

The Information Age Has Forgotten Formation

We need more than mere information. We need practices, habits, and experiences that will positively shape who we become.

Oftentimes people try to use the wrong delivery method for the kind of content they are conveying. Here, I am going to talk about three different kinds of content, and how they differ in how best to deliver them. The three types of content we will be discussing are formational, informational, and transformational. Of these types of content, you are probably most familiar with informational content, as we are inundated with it in the information age. In fact, that is probably the primary problem I am addressing here. In the information age, we address all content as if it were informational content that can be delivered by informational means. In fact, we do have the best information delivery systems that have ever existed Read More ›

emergency-department-doctors-nurses-and-paramedics-push-gurney-stretcher-with-seriously-injured-patient-towards-the-operating-room-stockpack-adobe-stock
Emergency Department: Doctors, Nurses and Paramedics Push Gurney / Stretcher with Seriously Injured Patient towards the Operating Room.

Near Death: Why Corroborated NDEs Can’t Just Be Explained Away

In some cases, Gary Habermas recounts, patients who had NDEs while in a state of clinical death report dates and numbers that are later found to be accurate
Materialist explanations for near-death experiences are much less satisfactory than simply accepting that the mind can act independently of the brain Read More ›
senior-man-looking-at-empty-bench-and-remembering-his-friend-loss-memories-stockpack-adobe-stock
Senior man looking at empty bench and remembering his friend, loss, memories

Why Can’t Our Memories Be “Stored” in the Brain?

The image of storing and erasing memories is popular due to computer technology but it is not relevant to how the human mind works
When we talk about memory, we often use word pictures that make it seem as though memories behave like material things but they don’t. Read More ›
chatgpt-artificial-intelligence-conversational-chat-bot-by-open-ai-using-machine-learning-generative-ai-stockpack-adobe-stock
ChatGPT Artificial Intelligence conversational chat bot by open ai using machine learning, Generative AI

Astrophysicist: Don’t Say That Chatbots “Hallucinate”

Adam Frank points out that human-type “hallucination” is not at all what drives a chatbot to claim that the Russians sent bears into space
Frank, fellow physicist Marcelo Gleiser, and philosopher Evan Thompson argue in a new book that ignoring explicitly human experience is a blind spot for science Read More ›
A man going through the dark old tunnel. Tunnel with traffic lights and a silhouette of a man

Near-Death: What People Learn When They Are (Briefly) Dead

In this excerpt, Prof Gary Habermas reports that sometimes the returned experiencer says that someone else has died — but the official news only comes later
For reasons that are not yet clear, blind people can see during a near-death experience and details have been confirmed. Habermas relates some cases. Read More ›
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Receding concrete decaying arches

Why Doesn’t God Just Do Something Dramatic to Prove He Exists?

The Divine Hiddenness argument for atheism, espoused by Matt Dillahunty, is that, if a perfectly loving God existed, reasonable unbelief would be impossible
Philosopher Blaise Pascal argued that God gives enough evidence for faith and leaves room for doubt because he wants our heart first — and reason follows. Read More ›
women-man-and-hospital-bed-in-motion-blur-of-emergency-surgery-healthcare-wellness-or-risk-condition-operation-doctors-nurses-and-medical-workers-with-patient-in-busy-er-theatre-room-or-teamwork-stockpack-adobe-stock
Women, man and hospital bed in motion blur of emergency surgery, healthcare wellness or risk condition operation. Doctors, nurses and medical workers with patient in busy er, theatre room or teamwork

Prof: There’s a Growing Number of Verified Near-Death Experiences

Gary Habermas notes more than 110 NDEs where experiencers’ detailed reports of what they saw when they were flatlined have been corroborated later
It’s exceedingly unlikely, Prof. Habermas argues, that all these cases result from misperception deception, coincidences, or mistakes. Read More ›
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Sand dunes in Sahara desert, Libya

Dune (1984) vs the Classic Sci-Fi Novel: What Worked, What Didn’t

For some scenes, the film was an improvement on the book; for others, writer David Lynch might better have stuck with the original

Last time we talked about the opening of Dune 1984. The Hollywood Strike has delayed the sequel to the current remake till March but the classic is worth revisiting in the meantime, both for its successes and failures. The 1984 writer, David Lynch, made various changes to the story that gave the viewer a clearer understanding of what was going on than Frank Herbert’s classic 1965 novel did. After the first two scenes, which help establish the situation in the world of Dune, the Reverend Mother flies to Caladan to test Paul Atreides with the painful Gom Jabbar. I’ve agreed with his choices so far. His opening showed the viewer why the Reverend Mother chose to visit Paul when she Read More ›

a-man-puts-wooden-blocks-with-the-words-fact-and-fake-concept-of-news-and-false-information-yellow-press-stockpack-adobe-stock
A man puts wooden blocks with the words Fact and fake. Concept of news and false information. Yellow press.

So Who Are Today’s Disinformation Police?

Social scientists are striving to develop ways to blunt the force of information that governments would rather the public did not know or heed
The disinformation experts claim to be defending democracy — and yet their principal weapon is indoctrination. Read More ›
businessman-holding-tablet-and-showing-holographic-graphs-and-stock-market-statistics-gain-profits-concept-of-growth-planning-and-business-strategy-display-of-good-economy-form-digital-screen-stockpack-adobe-stock
Businessman holding tablet and showing holographic graphs and stock market statistics gain profits. Concept of growth planning and business strategy. Display of good economy form digital screen.

Retracted Paper Is a Compelling Case for Reform

The credibility of science is being undermined by misuse of the tools created by scientists. Here's an example from an economics paper I was asked to comment on
In my book Distrust (Oxford 2023), I recommend that journals not publish data-driven research without public access to nonconfidential data and methods used. Read More ›
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Confused robot

If AI’s Don’t Know What They’re Doing, Can We Hope to Explain It?

With AI, we have a world of powerful, useful, but entirely opaque systems. We don’t know why they make decisions and neither do they

In yesterday’s post, I talked about the fact that AI’s don’t understand the work they’re doing. That makes the goal — to make them think like people — elusive. This brings us to the second problem, which ended up spawning an entire field, known as “Explainable AI.” Neural networks not only don’t know what they’re doing when they do it, they can’t in general explain to their designers or users why they made such-and-such a decision. They’re a black box; in other words, they are obstinately opaque to any attempts at a conceptual understanding of their decisions or inferences. How does that play out? It means, for example, that, with image recognition tasks like facial recognition, the network can’t explain Read More ›

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Magazines

How Data Can Appear in Science Papers — Out of Thin Air!

At Retraction Watch, Gary Smith explains how one author team apparently copy pasted missing data about green innovation in various countries

Recently, Retraction Watch, a site that helps keeps science honest, noted some statistical peculiarities about a paper last September in the Journal of Clean Energy, “Green innovations and patents in OECD countries.” The site was tipped off by a PhD student in economics that “For several countries, observations for some of the variables the study tracked were completely absent.” But that wasn’t the big surprise. The big surprise was when the student wrote to one of the authors: In email correspondence seen by Retraction Watch and a follow-up Zoom call, [Almas] Heshmati told the student he had used Excel’s autofill function to mend the data. He had marked anywhere from two to four observations before or after the missing values Read More ›

artificial-intelligence-white-ai-robot-thinking-and-looking-big-screen-monitor-of-big-data-on-blue-high-technology-for-the-future-rise-in-technological-singularity-background-generative-ai-stockpack-adobe-stock
Artificial intelligence, White AI robot thinking and looking big screen monitor of big data on blue high technology for the future rise in technological singularity background, Generative AI

Why, Despite All the Hype We Hear, AI Is Not “One of Us”

It takes an imaginative computer scientist to believe that the neural network knows what it’s classifying or identifying. It’s a bunch of relatively simple math
The AI scientist’s dream of general intelligence, often referred to as Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), remains as elusive as ever. Read More ›
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cute artificial intelligence robot with notebook

Why Chatbots (LLMs) Flunk Routine Grade 9 Math Tests

Lack of true understanding is the Achilles heel of Large Language Models (LLMs). Have a look at the excruciating results
Chatbots don’t understand, in any meaningful sense, what words mean and therefore do not know how the given numbers should be used. Read More ›
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The archaeologist is digging

Prehistoric Children with Down Syndrome Were Valued, Burials Show

The six found so far from one culture, identified by DNA evidence, did not live long but they were buried with grave goods
Today, when children with Down syndrome can grow up, they can display remarkable abilities, as the story of the Edmonton Oilers’ Joey Moss shows. Read More ›
fork-in-the-road-in-forest-at-storm-weather-at-night-concept-of-insecurity-of-future-stockpack-adobe-stock
fork in the road in forest at storm weather at night, concept of insecurity of future

My Reply to Free Will Deniers: Show Me

It is helpful to consider the question in this way—not “do we have free will?,” but rather “what does it mean to believe we don’t have free will?”
No humans live as if we doubt free will. Free will denial is just a way for materialists to advertise themselves, like a political yard sign. Read More ›
consciousness-metaphysics-or-artificial-intelligence-concept-waves-go-through-human-head-3d-rendered-illustration-stockpack-adobe-stock
Consciousness, metaphysics or artificial intelligence concept. Waves go through human head. 3D rendered illustration.

Philosopher: Non-Materialism Is Fashionable Orthodoxy Now

Non-reductionism, which means that the mind is not simply reducible to the brain, is now well accepted, she argues
Giuseppina D’oro’s essay introduces two 20th-century idealist philosophers — Oakeshott and Collingwood — and their critique of psychology as a science. Read More ›
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Volcano eruption with lava flow in dark

AI Decodes Scrolls Scorched by Vesuvius’ Eruption

In 79 AD, Vesuvius reduced a library to charcoal. Remarkably, machine learning technology has begun to decipher scrolls that humans could not unwrap
Ironically, AI, far from making study of the classics obsolete, may help create new opportunities for classics scholars, via recovered texts. Read More ›
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Corporate business people working in busy marketing office space, planning strategy in books and reading email on laptop at work. Businessman, businesswoman and workers at startup advertising company

Full-Time: Why We Need More Creative Productivity, Not Less

A new book shows how we lost the meaning of work and the ways we can get back on track.
Bahnsen subscribes to the classical view of economics that prizes production over consumption. Read More ›
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Money making machine printing fake counterfeit dollar bills. Generative AI.

If Information Is Wealth, Are Deepfakes a Form of Counterfeiting?

The current tech media overdose on panic over deepfakes. They could be drowning out practical ways of fighting back
To whatever extent digital information is a form of wealth, its digital producers must always fight counterfeiters — just as currency issuers must do. Read More ›
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Young african runner running on racetrack

A Philosopher Explains: How the Soul Relates to the Body

James Madden explains a philosophical approach to the soul called hylomorphism which, he argues, can benefit neuroscience
Hylomorphism, derived from ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, unites the sou with the body without denying its immateriality or immortality. Read More ›
physics-or-mathematical-equations-on-a-universe-decorative-led-background-give-the-impression-of-interstellar-space-travel-stockpack-adobe-stock
Physics or mathematical equations on a universe decorative LED background give the impression of interstellar space travel.

A Physicist Tries to Avoid the Fact of Design in Our Universe…

Physicist Alexander Vilenkin of Tufts University argues, against apparent fine-tuning, that our universe’s cosmological constant should have a special value like zero, but doesn’t

In his discussion with Robert Lawrence Kuhn at Closer to Truth, Tufts physicist and cosmologist Alexander Vilenkin addresses the question, “Is the Universe Fine-Tuned for Life and Mind?”: If the deep laws of the universe had been ever so slightly different human beings wouldn’t, and couldn’t, exist. All explanations of this exquisite fine-tuning, obvious and not-so-obvious, have problems or complexities. Natural or supernatural, that is the question. Vilenkin — who is also a professor of evolutionary science — concedes the main point: Alexander Vilenkin: [0:40] Well yeah that’s right. It appears that the Universe is fine-tuned in the sense that there are about 30 constants of nature which take some specific value: if you look at these numbers, they look Read More ›

mysterious-bigfoot-sighting-in-the-deep-forest-generative-ai-illustration-stockpack-adobe-stock
mysterious bigfoot sighting in the deep forest, generative AI illustration

Bigfoot and Trust in Science: A Cautionary Tale

Of three men searching for Bigfoot in 1969 — a hunting guide, an enthusiast, and a physical anthropologist, which seemed surest that the monster was real?
Fruitful science depends in part upon character as well as intelligence and training. A dose of humility seldom goes unrewarded. Read More ›
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Astronauts exploring an asteroid 3D rendering elements of this image furnished by NASA

Where Did Dune 1984 Succeed? Where Did It Fail?

The Hollywood Strike postponed the release of the sequel to the new film version of Dune until March so, for now, let’s have another look at the 1984 version
The decades-old film retelling relied on some risky techniques but they turned out better than we might have expected, given the scope of the plot. Read More ›
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Technology, chemistry and science banner design template. Molecule and communication pattern. Connected lines with dots.

Kurt Gödel’s “Incompleteness Theorem”

For Kurt Gödel, mathematics pointed to a remarkable world of transcendent order and meaning

I am not a mathematician. I should preface with that. However, mathematics and its practitioners have long been a source of fascination. It poses interesting questions regarding God, underlying structure in the universe, and whether mathematics is an illusion. Over the summer, I wrote about an interview between physicist Lawrence Krauss and the novelist Cormac McCarthy. McCarthy was intrigued by physics and mathematics and ventured into topic in his final pair of novels, the interconnected volumes The Passenger and Stella Maris. In his conversation with Krauss, McCarthy said he believed that human beings created mathematics to supply the universe with the illusion of structure and comprehensibility. I don’t know if he thought the same of language itself, but if he Read More ›

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closeup ants

Ants: An Utterly Different Model of a Large Communal Society

In terms of sheer complexity of society, ants are similar to humans but they “think” very differently from us, as a British science writer finds
At one point, Southeast Asian ants invaded the sealed Biosphere II project in Arizona (intended for space exploration studies), using it as a honeydew farm. Read More ›
a-depiction-of-a-landscape-inspired-by-the-uncertainty-principle-with-shapes-that-appear-to-shift-and-blur-stockpack-adobe-stock
A depiction of a landscape inspired by the uncertainty principle, with shapes that appear to shift and blur.

What If We Lost the Power to Think Abstractly?

Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges depicts a character whose total recall prevents him from using abstractions, though he recognizes their existence
Physicist Werner Heisenberg saw in the dilemma of language — the specific vs. the general — an analogy to his famous Uncertainty Principle in physics. Read More ›
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Locked padlock on network cables connected to white Wi-Fi wireless router on a desk. Prohibit and restrict access to the internet, limit internet connection and internet censorship concepts.

When Censorship Parades Itself as a Science…

A House Subcommittee discovered that the National Science Foundation — which is supposed to support science and engineering — is readying censorship tools
The bee in the bonnets of the researchers who received the funding for the internet censorship program is that Americans can’t tell fact from fiction. Read More ›
a-young-woman-holding-the-hand-of-an-old-woman-in-a-hospital-bed-black-and-white-stockpack-adobe-stock
A young woman holding the hand of an old woman in a hospital bed, black and white

Palliative Care Doctor: What Dying Feels Like

Although a dying person tends to spend more and more time asleep or unconscious, there may be a surge of brain activity just before death
Fifty years ago slick commentators expected to explode myths about the soul or the hereafter but today, NDEs and terminal lucidity are serious research topics. Read More ›
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Robot's hand holds up a red heart aigenerated.

Will You Be My Valentine, Chatbot?

It is a tragedy indeed when our loneliness as a culture has developed so far that many people see chatbot companions as one of the only way forward.
Recent studies indicate that members of Gen Z are dividing politically according to sex, with men leaning more conservative and women going more liberal. Read More ›
future-virtual-reality-learning-process-for-children-in-a-kindergarten-daycare-using-vision-glasses-for-multimedial-training-and-imagination-stockpack-adobe-stock
Future virtual reality learning process for children in a kindergarten daycare using Vision glasses for multimedial training and imagination

Will Apple’s Vision Pro Be the Next iPhone?

Or end up like Google Glass? With Vision Pro, in order to see anything, including the ordinary world around you, you have to use the multiple mounted cameras

(This article by Texas State University engineering prof Karl D. Stephan originally appeared at Engineering Ethics Blog (February 5, 2024) and is reprinted with permission.) Back in June of 2023, Apple announced its Vision Pro, which the Wikipedia article about it calls a “mixed reality” headset. This week, in some parts of the world you can now buy your own Vision Pro—for $3,500. While this will not be an obstacle for wealthy early adopters, the rest of us will probably wait until the beta-version bugs are worked out and the price comes down. In the meantime, we can think about what this means for the future of humanity. That sounds either presumptuous or silly, but there is no question that Read More ›

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Endless reflections of mirrors in labyrinth house

Hall of Mirrors: The Many Ways Consciousness Baffles Researchers

Does consciousness have a seat at the table? Wait a minute. Isn’t consciousness the table? Or is it?
The human brain was bound to disappoint a pop culture quest for easy answers; brain imaging has not turned out to be a road map of the mind. Read More ›
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Anonymous call

Book Banning Today: Silently … Not Like in the Old Days

Traditional anti-book banning groups are simply not where the action is and maybe don’t want to be

Last week we looked at the way censorship in the age of the internet is typically invisible. It’s not the police raiding bookstores; it’s — for example — sudden downranking of posts so that information that might have reached millions of people reaches only dozens. Constantly suppressed, it can’t go viral. We can see the change more clearly if we look at the difference between how books (and other information) used to get banned and how they get banned today. Book banning before the internet When the word “book bans” is used today, it usually means something different from what it meant even a few decades ago. Ulysses, a groundbreaking work by Irish novelist James Joyce (1882–1941) was indeed banned Read More ›

choosing-the-high-road-or-low-road-stockpack-adobe-stock
Choosing the High Road or Low Road

How Neuroscience Disproved Free Will and Then Proved It Again

In this excerpt from Minding the Brain (2023), neuroscientist Cristi L. S. Cooper discusses the discovery of “free won’t” — the decision NOT to do something
Neuroscientist Benjamin Libet was skeptical of claims that he had disproved free will, so he continued to experiment and found that he hadn’t after all. Read More ›
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St. Stephen's Cathedral, Toul, France.

The “Stay Human” Movement

How we can maintain human exceptionalism in an automated age

At the beginning of the year, I wrote a bit about the resolution to “stay human” in 2024, in a world that is calling for artificial intelligence to be incorporated into more spheres of life, including law, automated driving, entertainment, and even relationships. In such a world, our own capacities and skillsets will necessarily diminish. If I offload my responsibility to write an essay to ChatGPT, my ability to write an essay on my own will deteriorate. These technologies that seem to make us more powerful are actually making us weaker. That is, of course, if we let them. Journalist Susannah Black Roberts wrote helpfully on staying human in a recent Substack article, in which she comments, Yes, it’s important Read More ›

this-illustration-aims-to-highlight-the-emerging-threat-of-deepfakes-in-political-misinformation-need-for-vigilance-in-the-face-of-advanced-disinformation-technology-stockpack-adobe-stock
This illustration aims to highlight the emerging threat of deepfakes in political misinformation need for vigilance in the face of advanced disinformation technology.

Will Deepfakes Be Used to “Show” Us That Computers Can Now Think?

As the deepfake technology advances, William Dembski wonders whether some AI zealots might try to “fake it till they make it,” Theranos-style
As the technology advances, companies whose customers will likely be harmed by deepfakes lag behind in strategies to counter them. Read More ›
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The universe within. Silhouette of a man inside the universe. The concept on scientific and philosophical topics.  Elements of this image furnished by NASA.

Is Your Mind Bigger Than the Universe? Well, Look At It This Way…

Surprisingly, there is a way to measure the mind that shows it IS bigger than the universe — information

Imagine you’re sitting at home, relaxing in your favorite easy chair. Go on, kick your legs up. Feel your limbs releasing the stress of the day, starting from the extremities, and progressing up your core to your head. Now, let your mind expand. Let go of what is holding your mind down. Feel it become free, outside of everything around it. Let the feeling continue until your mind is bigger than the universe. Now consider the question: if your mind is bigger than the universe, can it be within the universe? If a ball is bigger than a bag, can it be contained by the bag? Of course not. If the mind is bigger than the universe, then it must Read More ›

refreshing-summer-cocktails-with-a-slice-of-lime-alcoholic-drink-garnished-with-a-sprig-of-mint-citrus-and-ice-cubes-in-the-bar-stockpack-adobe-stock
Refreshing summer cocktails with a slice of lime. Alcoholic drink. Garnished with a sprig of mint, citrus and ice cubes. In the bar.

Are the New Atheists Losing Their “Cool” Quotient?

And taking Darwinism with them? A look at what’s happened in the last two decades would seem to suggest that
The Four Horsemen of the atheist apocalypse no longer ride at full gallop and a close observer has noted that their cause has devolved to social justice issues. Read More ›
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Paradigm of Soul Geometry

Belief in the Soul Is Found in Every Time and Place

Substance dualism holds clearly that the soul and the body are two different types of entities
The materialist philosophers ground war on “substance dualism” is really a war on what all human beings innately believe. Read More ›
quantum-portal-to-a-world-of-wonder-and-mystery-where-the-laws-of-nature-are-strange-and-unpredictable-wormhole-time-travel-illustration-stockpack-adobe-stock
Quantum portal to a world of wonder and mystery, where the laws of nature are strange and unpredictable. wormhole, time travel illustration.

Alien Resurrection Part 4: The Good, the Bad, and the… Bizarre

In a single moment, Purvis becomes one of the most heroic characters in the entire franchise
Alien Resurrection might help you forget Alien 3, and that alone makes it worth watching. Read More ›
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Tropical green leaves on dark background, nature summer forest plant concept

Yes, Plants Do Communicate — But Is It a One-Way Street?

Are we straining the meaning of the term “communication” by overinterpreting what we observe?
The study of plant communication may have useful applications but perhaps comparisons with animal communication should be made cautiously. Read More ›
x-ray-female-head-with-implanted-micro-chip-3d-illustration-stockpack-adobe-stock
X ray female head with implanted micro chip - 3d Illustration

Will Neuralink’s Brain Implant Help Paralysis Victims?

Addressing disabilities like paralysis, limb loss, and blindness seems a more realistic goal than the hyped (and feared) human–machine hybrids
When Elon Musk announced his first implant recipient late last month, a broad public first learned that many people with disabilities use implants now. Read More ›
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NFL Superbowl stadium at night.American football .

Taylor Swift and the Looming Threat of Deepfakes

According to an attorney, Swift should probably go after the AI companies themselves if she decides to sue.

The country-turned-pop star Taylor Swift has commanded headlines for well over a year now with her record-breaking “Eras Tour” as well as her romance with Kansas City Chiefs tight-end Travis Kelce. Unfortunately, her image has also made the rounds in AI engines. Deepfake pornography is already an emerging problem, but its seriousness resurfaced when explicit, AI-generated images of Taylor Swift went viral in late January. Only ten states currently have laws prohibiting deepfake pornography, but legislation is underway to ban it in several others, including Swift’s home state, Tennessee. According to attorney Carrie Goldberg, if Swift were to sue anyone, it would probably have to be focused on the AI companies themselves. USA Today reports, It’s possible that the faked Read More ›

diverse-cultures-international-communication-concept-human-silhouette-with-speech-bubbles-stockpack-adobe-stock
Diverse cultures, international communication concept. Human silhouette with speech bubbles.

Origin of Language: Still a Mystery, Despite All We Know Now

We aren’t even sure which is the world’s oldest spoken language, though Hebrew, Arabic, and Chinese have impressively long histories
We can research many questions about language but it’s not realistic to hope either that we can easily explain its origin or simply reduce it to software. Read More ›
censorship-on-freedom-of-speech-restriction-of-public-opinion-right-to-protest-and-activism-undemocratic-practices-and-governments-stockpack-adobe-stock
Censorship on freedom of speech. Restriction of public opinion, right to protest and activism. Undemocratic practices and governments.

How Censorship Has Changed and Why That Matters So Much

The way censorship works now, you don’t even know about it. So it is much more difficult to protest.
Today’s censorship depends in part on the fact that failing mainstream media don’t want to know. Stories are increasingly broken by independent writers. Read More ›
a-space-alien-sits-on-a-golden-throne-ai-generated-art-stockpack-adobe-stock
A space alien sits on a golden throne Ai generated art

William Dembski: Destroy the AI Idol Before It Destroys Us

Design theorist Dembski points to the way that chess adapted to computers to become better than ever as a way forward in the age of AI
Dembski warns that the promoters of AI as “taking over” have a vested interest in claims that keep them at the top of society’s intellectual and social order. Read More ›
hemispheres-of-the-brain-front-view-stockpack-adobe-stock
Hemispheres of the brain front view

Could Human Consciousness Be a Recent Historical Development?

Julian Jaynes’s bicameral mind theory, popular in the 1970s, stated that until about 3000 years ago, humans were not really conscious
Julian Jaynes, a researcher at Princeton, developed his theory after he was not able to demonstrate the evolution of consciousness via animal studies. Read More ›
ai-chatbot-intelligent-digital-customer-service-application-concept-computer-mobile-application-uses-artificial-intelligence-chatbots-automatically-respond-online-messages-to-help-customers-instantly-stockpack-adobe-stock
AI Chatbot intelligent digital customer service application concept, computer mobile application uses artificial intelligence chatbots automatically respond online messages to help customers instantly

A Thoughtful Reader’s Reaction to Next Gen AI Hype

Recent hype at Wired Magazine about new personal assistant technology garnered a — perhaps unexpected — reaction
At Wired we learn that the new app will require more chatting. Reader: “I really don’t want to chat with anyone, especially if they’re a bot, or a salesperson.” Read More ›
futuristic-ai-woman-the-evolution-of-agi-in-a-digital-world-facial-recognition-artificial-intelligence-ai-generated-art-stockpack-adobe-stock
Futuristic AI Woman: The Evolution of AGI in a Digital World, Facial recognition, Artificial Intelligence, AI Generated Art

William Dembski: When Is Transhumanism a Form of Technobigotry?

In his further essays in the current series, he explains why AI cannot avoid collapse without the input of novel information from humans

Recently, design theorist William Dembski wrote a long essay on artificial general intelligence at his site, billdembski.com, The article is also available as a series of shorter pieces at Evolution News. Last week, we offered some highlights here. Here are highlights from two segments published since then: First, is Dembski being too hard on transhumanist inventor Ray Kurzweil? He wonders about that but then in “Artificial General Intelligence: Machines vs. Organisms,” he says, Kurzweil is a technophile in that he regards building and inventing technology, and above all machines, as the greatest thing humans do. But he’s also a technobigot in that he regards people of the past, who operated with minimal technology, as vastly inferior and less intelligent than Read More ›

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petroglyphs. cave drawings

Thinking Back to the Very Beginnings of Art

It just appears, from great antiquity, and we really don’t know why. All we know is that animals don’t do it
The problem is, so much is lost that it is risky to draw conclusions. But what’s remarkable is how humans have expressed themselves with whatever was available. Read More ›
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Man is using virtual reality headset. Image with glitch effect.

The Apple Vision Pro is Here

What exactly is the point of this new, painfully expensive piece of gadgetry?
Given what we've seen so far, it seems like this new release from one of the world's foremost technology companies is more of a fancy toy than a genuine tool. Read More ›
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Skull Assorted Poison Bottles

Artists Strike Back!: New Tool “Poisons” Images Pirated by AI

Nightshade, developed by University of Chicago computer science prof Ben Zhao, makes the AI generator keep giving you a cat when you ask for a dog
Overall, Nightshade may prove more useful than lawsuits to artists. It is embedded in pixels, visible only to AI, not to humans. Read More ›
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A DNA testing kit. Generative AI

Why Is 23andMe — the Hot Gene Testing Startup — Now Worthless?

Birthed in Silicon Valley among high-tech go-getters, it should still be steaming along, right? But traditional bedrock business realities cursed it at its birth

Embattled genetic testing outfit 23andMe had a customer base of 14 million for its home DNA testing kits. Thus, many of us know at least someone who has discovered a partial Mongolian, West African, or even Neanderthal ancestry via the famous “spit kit.” The 2006 startup, birthed in Silicon Valley and riffing off the Human Genome Project (2000), had a dazzling “the future is now!” launch. The founder, Anne Wojcicki (pronounced as if “Wojisky”), was the daughter of “Godmother of Silicon Valley” Esther Wojcicki and sister of YouTube’s former CEO, Susan Wojcicki. For a time, she was married to Google co-founder Sergei Brin and had plenty of billionaire backers. Thus 23andMe raised $1.4 billion in funding. So why has the Read More ›

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Asian software developers coding at office with multiple screens. Programmer development concept. Photo generative AI

Industry Pro: No, AI Is NOT Driving the Mass Big Tech Layoffs!

“It may explain the loss of some content generation and customer support positions — but doesn’t explain the layoffs of software developers.”
Semi- but not-fully capable AI systems allow us to be lazy in some respects, but demand that we be less lazy in others. Read More ›
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Silhouette of human with universe and physical, mathematical formulas

Why Is Theology the Most Important Empirical Science?

Arguing pro or con about the existence of God has resulted in many successful and/or widely accepted theories in science
If generating testable theories in empirical science is the standard of success, theology has certainly succeeded, as the record will show. Read More ›
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Flame of Evolution: Unveiling the Neanderthal's Discovery of Fire - A Surprising and Transformative Moment for Homo Sapiens, Marking an Astonishing Breakthrough in Ancient Culture.

Asked at Psychology Today: Were Neanderthals Religious?

We can’t poll long-dead Neanderthals on life, death, and the hereafter but the evidence we’ve dug up suggests they were thinking about that kind of thing
We must mentally step outside nature to consider things like how the world was created or what lies beyond death. Immaterial minds can do that. Read More ›
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Blue check mark logos on a heap on a table. Copy space. Verification concept

Philosopher Tweets on Consciousness — and Gets Feedback

Tulane U’s Kevin Morris tweeted that “the brain/ nervous system IS consciousness,” and started a broad discussion with many views represented
Social media can be a tool for free discussions with people worldwide who may not go to the conferences, sign up for the courses, or read the books we do. Read More ›
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Profile portrait of a child looking up at a robot with curiosity on a dark background - not based on a real person, Generative AI

When a Brilliant Man Has a Very Confused Perspective …

Astrophysicist Avi Loeb simply doesn’t seem to see that human beings are more valuable than advanced machines
Those who think that Harvard’s best and brightest should rule over us might want to invest some time to discover how some of them really think. Read More ›
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astronaut in space with stars and moon, spaceship under attack, 3d illustration

Alien Resurrection (1997) Part 3: Call Up the Reluctant Robot

Amid the harrowing crew escapes, Call survives being shot because she’s a robot. She somehow has sentience and hates being a robot
No one can pull ideals from a system of numbers. How could a robot decide what is objectively moral when all its decisions are based on a set of probabilities? Read More ›
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goats on the roof

Researchers: Goats Can Read Basic Human Emotions

The research team hopes to improve care of livestock by establishing what they do and don’t feel about the way they are treated
It’s no surprise if a wide range of animals understand human contentedness vs. anger. Those are precisely the elements of the mind that we and goats share. Read More ›
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fantasy and mystical creatures loch ness monster in lake, created with generative ai

Cyber Plagiarism: When AI Systems Snatch Your Copyrighted Images

Outright copying of others’ images may put system’s owners in legal jeopardy. Let's look at U.S. legal decisions
The AI companies offering the image-creating services need Robot from Lost in Space in their legal departments waving its arms, crying out: “Warning! Danger!” Read More ›
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Robot talking with old man machine learning reaction or ai artificial intelligence concepts.Chat bot software network.big data and block chain system.generative art images.

Human Intelligence Is Fundamentally Different From Machine Intelligence

Design theorist William Dembski discusses the problems we will encounter when we try to integrate the two when, say, sharing the road with self-driving cars
Dembski also touches on Ray Kurzweil’s quest for digital immortality and how it falls short of the original quest and its religious expressions. Read More ›
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AI robot sitting at the desk in the office and working on personal computer

Is New AI Driving the Mass Big Tech layoffs?

The jury’s out on whether that’s really what’s happening and, if so, whether it will improve profitability
The Big Tech companies may see replacing workers with AI as only natural. After all, that’s the future their executives were told from childhood to expect. Read More ›
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selective focus of robotic arm holding glass of water and person taking notes at wooden table

Japanese Novelist Who Won Prestigious Literary Award Unabashedly Used ChatGPT

Meanwhile, authors in the United States are waging war against AI for copyright violation

A Japanese writer, 33-year-old Rie Kudan, recently won one of the most prestigious literary prizes in the country for her novel Tokyo Sympathy Tower and admitted afterward that she had employed ChatGPT to write a portion of the text. And she wasn’t ashamed to admit it, instead advocating the use of Generative AI as a creative collaborator. She wants to “work with” generative AI to make the best use of her creativity, according to CyberNet. Meanwhile, authors in the United States are waging war against AI for copyright violation and intellectual property theft. Writers including Jonathan Franzen, Salman Rushdie, and George R.R. Martin are sounding the alarm against the unlawful intrusion of AI in the creative writing world. It is Read More ›

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Family tree concept, dna, genes, ancestors. A large box suitcase lies on the table with old photographs. AI generated Generative AI

Where, Exactly, Is Memory Stored in the Brain?

The hippocampus of the brain is important for memory formation but memories are immaterial and are not really “stored” anywhere
Memories during near-death experiences, when the mind is not in touch with the brain, are often clear, precise, and comprehensive. Read More ›
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Concept of propaganda and fake news, TV addiction. Sheepd watching TV in dark room. Politicians manipulate the population.

What Will the New Media Landscape Look Like?

Billionaires have been “scooping up” publishers in recent years but that has not stopped the bleed of red ink

In 2020, at Idea Grove, a PR and marketing firm’s blog, Jarrett Rush asked a title question, “What will the media landscape look like in five years?” Four of those five years are up so we can fairly assess two of the predictions: First, Twitter is going to continue to explode as a hub for media ‘pre-reporting.’ Many reporters vet SMEs and story ideas through Twitter already, but as traditional forms of media continue to die out, we will only continue to see growth in nontraditional platforms like Twitter. – Mary Brynn Milburn Well, something like that did happen, sort of. Elon Musk bought Twitter, changed its name to X, revealed all the government-directed censorship that previous management co-operated with, Read More ›

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Integrated control system simulation and autonomous driving in smart city

Autonomous Vehicles Are Catching Up Fast

There are winners and losers. GM's Cruise was kicked out of California over safety issues but Alphabet's Waymo, which emphasizes safety, is still chugging along

Well, some are, anyway, and there is a lesson in that. It’s been a while since I wrote on autonomous vehicles, but there has been quite a lot of action lately in this space, and I thought it was a good time to bring everyone up to speed. Waymo’s Level 4 system continually advances Once upon a time, Tesla was thought to be the industry leader in autonomous vehicles. Their 2016 “Paint It Black” demo convinced most of the world that Tesla was on the verge of having the technology to get people autonomously to and from any destination that could be mapped. Mind Matters News, however, was skeptical. The problem is simple—Tesla was betting on the wrong horse. There Read More ›

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Brain psychology mind soul and hope concept art, 3d illustration, surreal artwork, imagination painting, conceptual idea

What Christof Koch Misunderstands About the Mind and the Brain

In his revealing interview at Closer to Truth, the Allen Institute neuroscientist, though he doubts physicalism, attributed subjective experiences to “brains”

As I noted earlier this week, neuroscientist Christof Koch, who is chief scientist and president of the Allen Institute for Brain Science, seems to be having second thoughts about a purely physical view of consciousness. Koch has long been a proponent of a physicalist understanding of the mind-brain relationship—that the mind is in some sense reducible to the brain. He has proposed that consciousness arises as a product of brain-network complexity. But when he was interviewed a month ago on Robert Lawrence Kuhn’s show Closer to Truth, he seemed to be reconsidering his physicalist perspective on the mind-brain relationship. He noted that experience—the first-person subjective character of consciousness—cannot be derived from matter by any mechanism we currently understand. He seems Read More ›

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Servers data center room with bright bokeh light going through the corridor 3D rendering

The Allure of General Purpose Technologies

Generative AI is merely the most recent one.

The printing press, steam engine, electricity, mass production, the computer, the micro-chip, and the Internet are some of the biggest examples of general-purpose technologies (GPTs) over the last five hundred years, with an increasing number of them appearing over the last two centuries. Touted by economists, they define GPTs as those technologies that have impacted on many economic sectors and thus ended up changing the world, mostly for the good. Some of the world’s most valuable companies have succeeded with these GPTs most recently on the Internet. The so-called magnificent seven — Microsoft, Apple, Google, Meta, Netflix, Nvidia, and Amazon — all succeeded on the Internet, and investors are looking for the next GPTs, most recently in generative AI of Read More ›

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Data graph chart 3d render light dots background banner finance wallpaper ai generated

Scientists Attempt an Honest Look at Why We Trust Science Less

Contemplating the depressing results of a recent Pew survey, a molecular biologist and a statistician take aim at growing corruption in science

Molecular biologist Henry Miller and statistician S. Stanley Young have written an article at the Genetic Literacy Project on why trust in science is at an all time low. The Project’s motto is “Science Not Ideology” — a tall aspiration in theses times. To be honest, going in, I braced myself for the usual stuff: Politicians don’t fund science enough; the public is full of ignorant hillbillies who believe evangelists, not scientists; most reporters flunked science so they can’t explain why people should trust the science! or else the planet is doomed… and so forth. Well, I am glad to be wrong. Miller and Young’s article is a serious look at the current scandals in science around data manipulation that Read More ›

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Ancient city of Babylon with the tower of Babel, bible and religion. AI generated, human enhanced

Dembski: Does the Squawk Around AI Sound Like the Tower of Babel?

Well then, maybe that’s just what it is, he argues, in a new series of short essays

Recently, design theorist William Dembski wrote a long essay on artificial general intelligence at his site, billdembski.com, The article is also available as a series of shorter pieces at Evolution News. Dembski sees the breathless and implausible claims for computers that think like people as the modern equivalent of ancient idols. Here are highlights from the first two segments: The closest thing to AGI in the Bible is the Tower of Babel. The conceit of those building the tower was that its “top may reach unto heaven.” (Genesis 11:4) Seriously?! Shouldn’t it have been obvious to all concerned that however high the tower might be built, there would always be higher to go? Even with primitive cosmologies describing the “vault” Read More ›

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Young business people in office

Business Media Report That 2023 Was a Bad Year for Tech Startups

We are told that 2023 was an extinction level event for tech startups. In the United States, roughly 3200 private venture-backed companies went out of business last year, in a huge “cash bonfire.” We have likely never heard of most of them because their stories are more conventional than, say, the saga of crypto bad boy Sam Bankman-Fried. As Tech Crunch puts it, The story of most startup failures is far less exciting. The timing isn’t right, funding dries up, runways run out. Of late, a lot of macroeconomic factors have come into play, as well. These past few years have been especially brutal for startup land… Combined, those companies raised north of $27 billion. Even more starkly, it’s a Read More ›

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Robot hand typing on the computer. The concept of artificial intelligence replacing a human in dealing with another human. Ai generative

Human Impersonation AI Must Be Outlawed

I didn't used to think that AI systems could threaten civilization. Now I do.

(Previous version first appeared at theepochtimes.com on 1/12/2024) In 15 minutes of techno-evolutionary time, artificial intelligence-powered systems will threaten our civilization. Yesterday, I didn’t think so; I do now. Here’s how it will happen. The AI Human Impersonation Danger Recall how in 2023 criminals used an artificial intelligence (AI) system to phone an Arizona mother and say they were holding her daughter for ransom. The AI system mimicked perfectly her daughter’s voice down to the word choices and sobs. The terrified mom found her daughter safe at home, only then to determine the call was a scam. That crime showed the power of AI audio alone to deceive and defraud people. Today, Mom gets a text message demanding a ransom, Read More ›

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Person is looking for way out of psychedelic maze. A surreal labyrinth in magical forest. Human consciousness is at dead end, searching for solutions. Created with Generative AI

Leading Neuroscientist Wavers on Physical View of Consciousness

On Closer to Truth, Christof Koch said last month, “Consciousness cannot be explained only within the framework of space and time and energy, but we need to postulate something additional”

Here’s a fascinating short video (9 minutes) of neuroscientist Christof Koch, interviewed on Robert Lawrence Kuhn’s YouTube philosophy show, Closer to Truth: Koch, chief scientist and president of the Allen Institute for Brain Science, has long been a proponent of physicalism as an explanation for the mind. On that view, the mind is wholly a product of physical processes in the brain. But last month he explained that he is now coming around to an explanation for consciousness that transcends traditional physical theories: Koch: Consciousness cannot be explained only within the framework of space and time and energy, but we need to postulate something additional — experience.” He acknowledges that subjective experience — I am an ‘I’ and not just Read More ›

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male and female gender symbols on blackboard

The Cancel Culture Mob Comes For the Evolutionary Biologists

In an earlier post, I asked whether scientists might soon be forced to consider the occult as science. Perhaps some readers think the concern far-fetched. But consider: Science is as dependent on the concept of public truth as the great religions are. In an age when private truth is rapidly gaining in power, it is just as vulnerable as religion. For example, last October, the joint annual conference of the American Anthropological Association and the Canadian Anthropology Society canceled an all-female panel that was trying to defend biological sex as a “necessary category” in anthropology. They were accused of potentially causing “harm to members represented by the Trans and LGBTQI of the anthropological community as well as the community at Read More ›

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Stars nebula in space. Elements of this image furnished by NASA

Science Wager: Extraterrestrials Will Be Spotted Within 15 Years

An astrobiologist had made the bet with a planetary scientist, after they whittled down ET theories to two possibilities: They’re hiding or they’re not out there

Readers may recall the 25-year wager neuroscientist Christof Koch made with philosopher of mind David Chalmers in 1998 — a case of fine wine said that by 2023, the signature of consciousness would be found in the brain. That wager attracted a fair bit of attention when settled last year. Now, it appears, another wager is on the horizon. This time it’s about extraterrestrial life. Astrobiologist Dirk Schulze-Makuch, who leads the Astrobiology Research Group at the Technical University of Berlin, has bet University of London planetary scientist Ian Crawford a bottle of whisky that within 15 years, “convincing evidence for technological life elsewhere in the Universe will be found.” The wager originated in a paper Crawford published in Nature Astronomy Read More ›

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abstract illustration of the cosmos on the theme of the origin of life in the universe with stars, comets and nebulae

Five Trends That Help Us Make Sense of Space Science Today

The five trends noted below aren’t the only trends of importance but they are worth noting — they result in the kinds of stories that keep appearing in one form or another because the concept has enduring appeal. 1.The multiverse persists as a belief without evidence. At Cosmic Log, science writer Alan Boyle discusses why scientists take the multiverse — the idea that there might be an infinite number of universes — seriously? He points to the book The Allure of the Multiverse (Basic Books 2024) by Saint Joseph’s University physicist Paul Halpern: Scientists have searched for traces of the multiverse at work in the temperature variations of cosmic microwave background radiation — the so-called afterglow of the Big Bang. Read More ›

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three dolphins close up portrait underwater while looking at you

Why Animals Don’t Really Have Anything Much to Say

Cambridge zoologist Arik Kershenbaum specializes in animal communication, hoping to learn more about the evolution of human language. His 2020 book, Zoologist’s Guide to the Galaxy, (Viking 2020) uses zoology and Darwinian evolution to paint a picture of what extraterrestrial life forms must be like. His forthcoming book is Why Animals Talk (Penguin 2024) and is the subject of an interview with Killian Fox at The Guardian: He makes the conventional noises against human exceptionalism: “on the one hand, we want animals to talk; but on the other, we’re scared of animals talking because that would mean we’re not quite as special as we thought” But he also acknowledges genuine limitations. Take dolphin names, for example. Fox comments, “I was Read More ›

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Human brain with electric impulses in purple

Are Researchers Taking Mystical Experiences More Seriously Now?

Neuroscientist Marc Wittmann, Research Fellow at the Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology and Mental Health in Freiburg, Germany, has noticed a trend: Scientists are beginning to view altered states of consciousness — including mystical experiences, meditative states, and near-death experiences — with interest. That is, they are studying them, not just trying to explain them away. As he writes at MIT Reader, “for a long time extraordinary consciousness experiences have either been ignored by the mainstream natural sciences or have been explicitly denigrated as nonexistent — as the fantasies of cranks.” Perhaps enough evidence has accumulated of, for example, neurological or metabolic changes from meditation and verified information from near-death experiences, that study would make more sense now than Read More ›

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Escherichia Coli , E. Coli Bacterial Strains, Health and Food Safety microcosm, organismal and human biology science and research.

Bacteria Have Memories? Well, That’s What Some Researchers Found…

Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have found that bacteria can store and pass on memories of past actions — such as creating infections in humans — for about four to seven generations: Scientists have discovered that bacteria can create something like memories about when to form strategies that can cause dangerous infections in people, such as resistance to antibiotics and bacterial swarms when millions of bacteria come together on a single surface. The discovery — which has potential applications for preventing and combatting bacterial infections and addressing antibiotic-resistant bacteria — relates to a common chemical element bacterial cells can use to form and pass along these memories to their progeny over later generations. University of Texas at Read More ›

archaeological-excavations-and-finds-bones-of-a-skeleton-in-a-human-burial-a-detail-of-ancient-research-prehistory-stockpack-adobe-stock
Archaeological excavations and finds (bones of a skeleton in a human burial),   a detail of ancient research, prehistory.

Scientists Spar Over What a Netflix Science Documentary Should Be

Should “Ancient Apocalypse” be relabeled “science fiction” if archeologists don’t think the documentary writer’s claims are valid?

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal raises the question, should some Netflix documentaries be labeled science fiction? Two are currently targeted by researchers in paleontology and archeology respectively. One is Unknown: Cave of Bones (2023) in which paleoanthropologist Lee Berger and his team attempt to show that the world’s oldest graveyard was created by homo Naledi, who flourished in the Rising Star cave system from 335,000–236,000 years ago. The site contains 1,550 bone specimens from 15 individuals. The other is Ancient Apocalypse (2023), in which journalist Graham Hancock argues that an advanced ancient civilization existed 12,000 years ago and spurred many developments in human technology before disappearing. At the Wall Street Journal, Aylin Woodward tells us that the Read More ›

evil-robot-head-with-glowing-red-eyes-in-data-center-ai-generated-image-stockpack-adobe-stock
Evil robot head with glowing red eyes in data center, Ai generated image

Can AI Really Start Doing Evil Stuff All By Itself?

We need to first talk to the man in the mirror before we go around blaming transistor circuit boards for what’s wrong in the world

Could AI get any more sinister than what we’ve been hearing recently? Now we hear about scenarios right out of a cold war spy movie: AI sleeper agents. Not only might AI do evil things once we start plugging it into our most sensitive systems, but it might hide its evilness from us, biding time until the perfect strike. You can practically hear those GPUs crackling with villainous glee! To create such a scenario for study, a group of computer science researchers first trained an AI to react maliciously when certain key words were introduced. It is as if special agent Jason Bourne suddenly recalls ninja assassin skills whenever a handler tells him, “Ginger pickle pizza rhinoplasty.” These triggered AIs Read More ›

think-outside-the-box-on-school-green-blackboard-startup-education-concept-creative-idea-leadership-stockpack-adobe-stock
think outside the box on school green blackboard . startup  education concept. creative idea. leadership.

Citizen Scientist Forrest Mims Tells His Remarkable Life Story

In his new book “Maverick Scientist,” he details the ups and downs of an extraordinarily productive life in science, with few credentials to hide behind

Forrest M. Mims III (1944–) has so many accomplishments in science and electronics — with little formal training — that they would make your head spin. Getting Started in Electronics, originally written for RadioShack (now the Source), is one of dozens of electronics books Mims has produced over the years, sold more than 1.3 million copies. Introducing his autobiography, Maverick Scientist: My Adventures as an Amateur Scientist (Make Community, LLC, April 2024), the publisher notes, At thirteen he invented a new method of rocket control. At seventeen he designed and built an analog computer that could translate Russian into English and that the Smithsonian collected as an example of an early hobby computer. While majoring in government at Texas A&M Read More ›

capturing-the-intricate-structure-of-microtubules-within-a-cell-showcasing-their-role-in-cellular-transportation-metamorphosis-life-happiness-stockpack-adobe-stock
Capturing the intricate structure of microtubules within a cell, showcasing their role in cellular transportation. Metamorphosis, life, happiness

How Quantum Theory Relates To Consciousness

Experimental physicist Rob Sheldon explains the background to Hameroff and Penrose’s contested quantum consciousness theory, which is beginning to be tested

Yesterday, we ran a piece, “The theory that consciousness is a quantum system gains support,” which details a new interest in testing Stuart Hameroff and Roger Penrose’s quantum theory of consciousness (Orch OR theory). Many of us are unclear just how quantum theory relates to consciousness. Available evidence has amounted to saying that some phenomena are best explained that way. A faithful reader, experimental physicist Rob Sheldon, has offered to help with the background to quantum theories of consciousness. Here’s what he writes to say: — I’ll try a stab at explaining what quantum mechanics (QM) has to do with consciousness. The key document is prominent mathematical physicist Roger Penrose’s book, The Emperor’s New Mind: (Oxford, 1989). Here’s the first Read More ›

3d-rendering-of-human-cell-or-embryonic-stem-cell-microscope-background-stockpack-adobe-stock
3d rendering of Human cell or Embryonic stem cell microscope background.

How Life Differs From Matter: It Intentionally Uses Information

Information is immaterial by nature which makes it difficult to predict. Read More ›
particle-quantum-entanglement-quantum-correlation-quantum-mechanics-3d-illustration-stockpack-adobe-stock
Particle, quantum entanglement (quantum correlation). Quantum mechanics . 3d illustration

The Theory That Consciousness Is a Quantum System Gains Support

Hameroff and Penrose’s Orch Or Theory sees consciousness as the outcome of a quantum collapse of a wave function

At New Scientist last week, science writer and editor George Musser talked about the way a theory of consciousness that sees the brain as a quantum system is now under reluctant consideration. Musser, author of Putting Ourselves Back in the Equation (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023) went to visit anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff, who — with theoretical physicist Roger Penrose — advances the quantum-based Orch Or Theory (orchestrated objective reduction of the quantum state). Do quantum phenomena create conscious experience? Musser explains the basic idea of the Orch Or Theory (OOT), that conscious experience arises from quantum phenomena in the brain. The theory gained little traction in the past because it was difficult to test but Musser thinks that the use Read More ›

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In a dystopian future, a group of people wearing white, futuristic clothing stands inside a virtual reality, an ominous reminder of the uncertain fate of humanity

Tech Billionaires and Their Science Fiction Dreams

They're mistaking cautionary tales for instruction manuals.

The ideology and language surrounding the development of new technologies like AI often sound akin to futuristic utopias (or dystopias). A new article from the Scientific American illustrates why: many tech billionaires were enamored by science fiction as children. Charles Stross, himself a successful sci-fi novelist, writes, Billionaires who grew up reading science-fiction classics published 30 to 50 years ago are affecting our life today in almost too many ways to list: Elon Musk wants to colonize Mars. Jeff Bezos prefers 1970s plans for giant orbital habitats.  Peter Thiel is funding research into artificial intelligence, life extension and “seasteading.” Mark Zuckerberg has blown $10 billion trying to create the Metaverse from Neal Stephenson’s novel Snow Crash. And Marc Andreessen of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz has Read More ›

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human memory loss

Forget Stuff? Relax. Your Mind Is Likely Functioning As It Should

Recent research suggests that memories can sometimes be in a “dormant” stage due to interference

In recent years, a significant amount of research has been done on memory, including research on how we forget and why. A memory is stored as an engram, a physical trace of memory in the brain. Forgetting means losing or losing track of that trace. A great deal of the research on engrams has been done on mice because their memories, whether retrieved, forgotten, or erased, tend to be simple and easy to interpret. A recent article in The Scientist looked at some new mouse research on forgetting, which provides some reassuring results. University of Alberta neurobiologist Jacob Berry explained that a 2023 open-access study is actually still there, even when it can’t be retrieved due to some interference: “It’s Read More ›

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An amazing fibonacci pattern in a nautilus shell Generative AI

Gregory Chaitin’s New Books About Math Make It Actual Fun

He is a favorite podcast guest of ours and, it turns out, a fan of Mind Matters

Gregory Chaitin has been busy recently. He has produced two new short books, which can be downloaded free: Building the World out of Information and Computation (2021), which he summarizes as According to Pythagoras: All is Number, God is a Mathematician. Modern physics is in fact based on continuous mathematics, dierential and partial dierential equations, validating Pythagoras’ vision. In this essay we shall instead discuss a neo-Pythagorean ontology: All is Algorithm, God is a Programmer. In other words, can there be discrete computational models of the physical world? This is sometimes referred to as digital philosophy. There are in fact two books on digital philosophy, both in Italian: • Ugo Pagallo, Introduction to Digital Philosophy, from Leibniz to Chaitin • Read More ›

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Magic burning candles on glowing dark natural background. mysterious fairy scene. witchcraft ritual. dark natural Background. Samhain, Halloween holiday concept

Will Scientists Be Forced to Consider the Occult as Science?

When the World Economic Forum invited a witch to Davos to offer incantations, it was more than just window dressing

In the aftermath of the recent plagiarism scandal at Harvard University, in which president Claudine Gay had to resign, one commentator at the Wall Street Journal reminded readers of something she had said earlier. Her earlier, disastrous testimony before Congress on anti-Semitism paved the way for the scandal. Her response to the subsequent widespread criticism was that she had failed to convey “my truth.” Hold on to that phrase. It represents a shift in the intellectual currents of our time. “My truth” or (for grammatical convenience) “private truth” is making serious headway against public truth. That headway is beginning to impact science, as we shall see in later posts. But first it impacts culture. A witch at Davos In line Read More ›

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Physics or mathematical equations on a universe decorative LED background give the impression of interstellar space travel.

Does Mathematics Belong to an Eternal Realm?

In a recent episode of Closer to Truth, Robert Lawrence Kuhn hosted California State University philosophy professor Mark Balaguer, who defended the proposition that mathematics belongs to an eternal realm. This realm is frequently referred to as the Platonic realm, after the philosopher Plato (approx 424– 348 BC) who first espoused the idea. From the introduction to “Mark Balaguer – Is Mathematics Eternal?” (January 12, 2023); Mathematics is like nothing else. The truths of math seem to be unrelated to anything else—independent of human beings, independent of the universe. The sum of 2 + 3 = 5 cannot not be true; this means that 3 + 2 = 5 would be true even if there were never any human beings, Read More ›

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peaceful nature

Psychiatrist Looks at Mindfulness From a Christian Perspective

UCLA research psychiatrist Jeffrey Schwartz notes that the word “heart” in the biblical sense means the seat of consciousness, the seat of our spirit

UCLA research psychiatrist Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz adapts Buddhist concepts of mindfulness to the Western Christian tradition. One of the leading experts in neuroplasticity, he spoke on the topic at the Table Conference at Biola University’s Center for Christian Thought in 2014. His talk, “Mind Your Heart,” is worth revisiting: At the time, the practice of mindfulness, which is thousands of years old, had also become something of a fad, making the February 3, 2014 cover of Time Magazine. Since then, it continues to attract serious adherents from all philosophies and religions who want to learn to experience what really matters. Some highlights of his talk: ● [2:29] Basically we are just now coming out of the era in which all Read More ›

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AI chatbot robot assistant sitting at desk using computer as artificial intelligence. Business concept. AI generated

What AI Will Probably Really Do to White Collar Businesses

The tech media are full of scare stories but we can look at what happened when advanced technology hit blue collar industries as a guide

If you read the tech media, you may sometimes find yourself wondering if you (or they?) Are living in a sci-fi movie? Consider these news tidbits: “even in situations designed to prevent it from happening, chatbots invent information at least 3 percent of the time — and as high as 27 percent.” (New York Times) “Eighty-nine percent of machine learning (ML) engineers who work with generative AI say their models show signs of hallucination, according to survey results published Wednesday from ML observability platform Aporia.” (Fortune) Elsewhere, we are told, some AI could act as sleeper agents: “A sleeper agent is an AI that acts innocuous until it gets some trigger, then goes rogue.” At TechCrunch, we learn “Anthropic researchers Read More ›

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Spaceship, inside of engine

Will the Driving Force for Space Exploration Be a Religious Cult?

Physicist Jay Olson, academic visitor in the Department of Physics at Boise State University, offers an interesting take on the future of exploring the universe: Some time late this century, someone will push a button, unleashing a life force on the cosmos. Within 1,000 years, every star you can see at night will host intelligent life. In less than a million years, that life will saturate the entire Milky Way; in 20 million years – the local group of galaxies. In the fullness of cosmic time, thousands of superclusters of galaxies will be saturated in a forever-expanding sphere of influence, centred on Earth. Jay Olson, “Capturing the cosmos,” Aeon, January 8, 2024 What? Star Trek raised to the nth power Read More ›

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free-range chickens on an organic farm in styria,austria

Chicken Whisperers? Humans Learn to Interpret Chicken-ese Quickly

A recent paper in Royal Society Open Science found that humans can interpret chicken emotions by their clucks. Researchers at the University of Queensland in Australia were surprised at how quickly humans unfamiliar with chickens picked up the skill: Participants in the study listened to a series of clucks made by chickens excitedly anticipating food. They also listened to the chirps of chickens that were later denied a meal. After listening to an assortment of “fast clucks,” “whines” and “gakels,” researchers found about seven in 10 participants could identify the chickens’ mood from chirps alone. Luca Caruso-Moro, “The ‘clucking code’: Humans can understand how a chicken feelsfrom its clucks, CTV News, January 7, 2024 Perhaps because their faces are not Read More ›

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Senior lady with her aged mother with dementia, embracing and smiling in a summer park

New Studies Point to Ways We Might Reduce the Effects of Dementia

A recent study of the relationship between personality type and the impairments of dementia has produced some intriguing findings. Researchers at the University of California, Davis, and Northwestern University analyzed data from eight studies in the literature comprising over 44,000 people. Of these, 1,703 developed dementia. They were trying to find out what effect the Big Five personality traits — conscientiousness, extraversion, openness to experience, neuroticism, and agreeableness — had on the progress of dementia. They studied both performance on cognitive tests and brain autopsies: The researchers found that high scores on negative traits (neuroticism, negative affect) and low scores on positive traits (conscientiousness, extraversion, positive affect) were associated with a higher risk of a dementia diagnosis. High scores on Read More ›

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Labirinth

Consciousness Wars Still Simmer, Despite Peacekeeping Efforts

The field of consciousness studies has been in turmoil since over 100 researchers signed a letter last September, attacking neuroscientist Christof Koch’s leading Integrated Information Theory (IIT) theory of consciousness. Among other things, the theory’s panpsychist leanings could lead to a perception that unborn children have some sort of consciousness, which, to put it mildly, is an unpopular point of view in that field. In June of that year, Koch had also famously lost a 25-year wager (1998–2023) with philosopher of mind David Chalmers that a signature of consciousness would be found in the human brain. It wasn’t. A bit of background An article by Mariana Lenharo at Nature earlier this week provides some background and assesses the damage. In Read More ›

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Woman gesticulating during interview with media, press conference, close-up

As Legacy Media Continues in Decline, It Espouses Censorship More

Even as late as the turn of the millennium, media people tended to be reflexively against censorship, but then courage failed along with relevance

Amid the continuing layoffs and plummeting public trust, traditional mainstream media have tended to favor censorship far more than they used to. As John Lloyd, co-founder of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, put it recently at Quillette, The US media enjoys the world’s strongest protections of speech and publication, so it might have been counted on to oppose this movement in the name of those freedoms. But instances of journalists being fired or forced to resign for writing or saying the wrong thing have been growing, and these cases tend to follow a similar pattern. First, a writer or editor publishes a piece that is deemed offensive to one or more groups of “marginalised” individuals. Second, activists, Read More ›

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Creative Idea with Brain and Light Bulb Illustration, with Generative AI Technology

Robert J. Marks on the Copyright Lawsuits Against the Chatbots

Essentially, the salad of material that the chatbot produces for users contains thousands of ingredients lifted without compensation from copyright holders

Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks published an article today at Newsmax on the swamp of litigation the chatbot developers are finding themselves in. Both the New York Times and Authors’ Guild are suing OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT for copyright infringement. Artists are suing generative AI firms. Essentially, the salad of material that the chatbot produces for users contains thousands of ingredients lifted without compensation from copyright holders. Marks, a Distinguished Professor of Engineering at Baylor University, points to the fate of Napster, an online music service that tried something similar at the turn of the millennium: It revolutionized the way people shared and downloaded music over the internet and allowed users to connect their computers to share Read More ›

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Brain: network of astrocytes (glial cells that support neurons).

New Findings About Our Mysterious “Second Brain”

It wasn’t long ago that researchers were hardly aware of the way the digestive system functions as a second brain. The big focus was neurons. But, along with neurons, both the central nervous system and the digestive system make extensive use of glial cells, whose function has not been as well understood. Glial cells, which do not produce electrical impulses, were considered “electrophysiologically boring.” We now know that they support neurons in both physical and chemical ways. In the gut, they co-ordinate immune responses From the Francis Crick Institute, we learn: … the enteric nervous system is remarkably independent: Intestines could carry out many of their regular duties even if they somehow became disconnected from the central nervous system. And Read More ›

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Team of scientists working in a laboratory, carefully conducting experiments and analyzing data. Generative AI

A Case Study in Why Peer Review May Be Unreformable

McIntosh and Hudson Vitale illustrate, by their very zeal to eliminate pro-life researchers, the built-in corruption of the peer review process

Peer review sleuths Leslie D. McIntosh and Cynthia Hudson Vitale contributed a paper recently to the voluminous literature on what’s wrong with peer review: “The objective of this study is to present a case study on how the peer review process may be manipulated by individuals with undisclosed connections to politically divisive organizations.” by which they mean pro-life ones: This case study analyzes the expertise, potential conflicts of interest, and objectivity of editors, authors, and peer reviewers involved in a 2022 special journal issue on fertility, pregnancy, and mental health. Data were collected on qualifications, orga-nizational affiliations, and relationships among six papers’ authors, three guest editors, and twelve peer reviewers. Two articles were found to have undisclosed conflicts of interest Read More ›

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graduation

Artificially Smart: Artificial Intelligence and Higher Education

Understanding needs to remain the metric by which students are evaluated

Artificial Intelligence tools like Copilot and ChatGPT can increase productivity. They speed up workflows and can be used to automate freeing people to spend their time on creative tasks. Advances in artificial intelligence technologies had a significant impact on the economy in 2023. Fortune magazine attributes AI-related economic growth as having helped “saved the economy” because growth in this sector offset disappointing returns in other sectors.  But with great power comes great responsibility. The tools of AI allow freshman college students to do what a year ago would have required a decade of professional experience. Educational institutions must carefully consider where and how these tools can be used without undermining the quality of education. Otherwise, overreliance on artificial intelligence will Read More ›

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african american man looking at window

Philosopher Explains How We Can Know That Consciousness Is Real

Last Friday, YouTube philosophy channel Closer to Truth aired host Robert Lawrence Kuhn’s interview with University of Texas, Austin, analytical philosopher Galen Strawson on the question “Is consciousness an illusion?” Is consciousness something special in the universe, its own category, irreducible to physical laws, a carrier of meaning and purpose? Or is consciousness a mere artifact of the brain, a by-product of evolution, a superstition exaggerated by human misperception? If you think or hope consciousness is special, then you should surely be a skeptic. Kuhn began by confessing that he did his doctorate in brain science, thinking he could learn about consciousness. Robert Lawrence Kuhn: [0:00] … I did a lot of work about the brain and enjoyed it very Read More ›

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full moon setting over the bridger mountains in winter near bozeman, montana

Robert J. Marks to speak at Big Sky Conference in Billings, Montana

He will focus on the way in which, while AI offers exciting possibilities, many claims for AI are provably overblown

Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks will be speaking in Billings, Montana, at the Big Sky Conference, “Artificial Intelligence and Transhumanism: Unraveling Science from an Ideology Driven Agenda” held January 26–27, 2024, at Emmanuel Baptist Church Gym. His topic will be “Artificial Intelligence, Transhumanism, and Our Future.” Dr. Marks is also a distinguished professor of engineering at Baylor University and the author of, among many other works, Non-Computable You: What You Do That Artificial Intelligence Never Will (Discovery Institute Press, 2022), a defense of human uniqueness in the age of artificial intelligence. He will focus on the way in which, while AI offers exciting possibilities, many claims for AI are provably overblown and there are some powers AI will Read More ›

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World War II airplane on formation

The Transhumanist Delusion of the Nazis

"All the Light We Cannot See" shows what can happen when the delusions of transhumanism join forces with an appalling ideology.

Last night, I watched three episodes of the new Netflix special All the Light We Cannot See, based on the book by Anthony Doerr of the same title. The movie follows the story of Marie, a blind girl who sends out radio frequencies in a small town on the French coast, and Werner, a German lad co-opted into the Nazi regime for his stunning abilities with radio transmitters. It is a beautiful and heart-rending interpretation of a beloved modern classic, so if you are able, do consider watching it for yourself. One particular point in the show that caught my attention (without giving spoilers), was the moment young Werner is marched against his will into the National Political Institute for Read More ›

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Coronavirus fraud and covid-19 scams or medical lies and conspiracy theory as a virus scammer spreading false medical information. Burning medical mask. Coronavirus cincept.

Fighting Pseudoscience With Empathy? Try a Little Humility First…

The accusation of “pseudoscience,” under the current science regime, has often become little more than an elite-driven smear against inconvenient data

Stony Brook astrophysicist Paul Sutter has decided to take on the big topic of pseudoscience, which, he says, he encounters “everywhere I go.” He admits that there is no clear definition of pseudoscience. For example, is controversial string theory, which he supports, pseudoscience? Some say it is “practically pseudoscience.” He says no. But happily, he has a personal definition: “pseudoscience has the skin of science but misses its soul.” The soul of science? It involves skills like rigor, where we take our own statements seriously and follow them to their full logical conclusions. Or humility, where we learn to accept that any statement can be proven wrong at any time. There’s also fundamental skepticism, in that we allow the evidence Read More ›

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Mobile dictionary, translator  and e-learning.concept . Learning languages online.  Smartphone and books with language courses.

Do People Who Speak Different Languages Think Differently?

For centuries, linguists found that an intriguing, attractive idea but there is no clear evidence for it

University of Siegen linguist James McElvenny, author of A History of Modern Linguistics (Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming, 2024) muses on the fact that this question preoccupied linguists for centuries: There is quite a bit at stake in entertaining the possibility of linguistic relativity – it impinges directly on our understanding of the nature of human language. A long-held assumption in Western philosophy, classically formulated in the work of Aristotle, maintains that words are mere labels we apply to existing ideas in order to share those ideas with others. But linguistic relativity makes language an active force in shaping our thoughts. Furthermore, if we permit fundamental variation between languages and their presumably entangled worldviews, we are confronted with difficult questions about Read More ›

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polar bear astronaut in space suit, generative ai

Internet Pollution — If You Tell a Lie Long Enough…

Large Language Models (chatbots) can generate falsehoods faster than humans can correct them. For example, they might say that the Soviets sent bears into space...

ChatGPT, Bing, Bard, and other large language models (LLMs) are undeniably astonishing. Initially intended to be a new-and-improved autocomplete tool, they can generate persuasive answers to queries, engage in human-like conversations, and write grammatically correct essays. So far, however, their main successes have been in providing entertainment for LLM addicts, raising money for fake-it-till-you-make-it schemes, and generating disinformation efficiently. Earlier this year Jeffrey Funk and I predicted a potentially debilitating feedback loop for LLMs. As the internet they train on becomes increasing polluted with LLM hallucinations and disinformation, LLMs may become increasingly prone to generating hallucinations and disinformation. I recently saw a concrete, personal example of this. One embarrassment for the early versions of OpenAI’s ChatGPT was that it kept Read More ›

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3 d render illustration of brain with brain inside3 d render illustration of brain with brain insidebrain in modern computer lab

Does the Brain Constrain the Mind Instead of Creating It?

There is no systematic, science-based reason today to think that’s not true and plenty of evidence suggests that it is

In Miracles (Geoffrey Bles, 1947, rev. 1960), Christian apologist C.S. Lewis (1898–1963) wrote, That spearhead of the Supernatural which I call my reason links up with all my natural contents—my sensations, emotions, and the like—so completely that I call the mixture by the single word ‘me’. Again, there is what I have called the unsymmetrical character of the frontier relations. When the physical state of the brain dominates my thinking, it produces only disorder. But my brain does not become any less a brain when it is dominated by Reason: nor do my emotions and sensations become any the less emotions and sensations. Reason saves and strengthens my whole system, psychological and physical, whereas that whole system, by rebelling against Read More ›

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Young woman using smart phone,Social media concept.

Facebook and Instagram Allegedly Hook Youngsters with Dopamine Triggering Tactics

“Social media use can negatively affect teens, distracting them, disrupting their sleep, and exposing them to bullying, rumor spreading, unrealistic views of other people’s lives and peer pressure,” according to the Mayo Clinic. Teens and younger children accessing social media repeatedly or for long periods face heightened risks of mental health problems, including depression, anxiety, social isolation, negative body image, decreased learning ability, even serious thoughts of suicide. Social media that lures kids into excessive use must come from somewhere. Top on the list is the 800-billion-dollar multinational conglomerate, Meta Platforms, Inc. (“Meta”), owner and operator of the social media platforms Facebook and Instagram.  To hold Meta accountable for social media’s damaging effects, 33 American states’ attorneys general (“Plaintiffs”) are Read More ›

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Party Background with lights, confetti, balloons and serpentine

Can There Really Be an Ultimate Happiness Machine?

Technology can do so much. Can it really provide an answer to the eternal human quest for happiness?

What is the one thing that everyone in the world can agree on? Everyone wants to be happy. And everyone has a different idea as to how happiness might be achieved. But people want to be happy so much that even people who deliberately seek ways to be sad do so because it fulfills them at some level and thus makes them happy. The whole world is quite a big market. What if someone could create a machine to satisfy this entire market; that is, make everyone happy? If you think about it, that is what all machines are designed to do, but in a very limited setting. All machines are satisfying some need, and that satisfaction makes the user Read More ›

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Old male author writing books

Does Plagiarism Really Matter Any More?

Yes, if we don’t want a world drowning in merely private truths

Claudine Gay, the first black and female president of Harvard, appointed in July, resigned January 2 amid a firestorm of allegations of plagiarism. Gay denied plagiarism. In her resignation letter, she and many of her supporters alleged racism. Many sources, including Gay, have also claimed or implied that the errors were not serious. But other university presidents in the same bind have faced the same fate: As the figureheads of their universities, presidents often face heightened scrutiny, and numerous leaders have been felled by plagiarism scandals. Stanford University’s president resigned last year amid findings that he manipulated scientific data in his research. A president of the University of South Carolina resigned in 2021 after he lifted parts of his speech Read More ›

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little fluffy kitten on a gray background

Can Science Tell Us Whether Our Cats Love Us?

Researchers have found out some intriguing things about the way cats react to humans

Science writer Carys Matthews turns the question around: Do cats really hate us? Citing a 2015 study, she notes, There is some truth in the accusations, as numerous studies have found evidence that cats (Felis catus) don’t love us back in the same way dogs do, and will make us work for their affections. They do, however, appear to like us at least a little. In a 2015 study conducted for the BBC documentary “Cats v Dogs,” neuroscientists sampled the saliva of 10 cats and dogs and found oxytocin hormone levels increased in both cats and dogs after being stroked. However, the amount of oxytocin, a love hormone used in social bonds, was much higher in dogs, increasing on average Read More ›

compliance-global-infographic-concept-of-legal-certification-of-different-countries-or-procedures-for-import-and-export-of-goods-or-product-country-to-country-global-business-stockpack-adobe-stock
Compliance global infographic concept of legal certification of different countries or procedures for import and export of goods or product country to country. Global business.

A Darwinian Argument for a Global Government

The evolutionary researchers worry that we have not evolved to be worthy of a global government and will face ecological ruin in consequence.

In a recent Royal Society publication, economist Timothy M. Waring, philosopher Zachary T. Wood, and evolutionary biologist Eörs Szathmáry tell us that we must evolve “global cultural traits” or face ruin, due to the ecological crises of the current “Anthropocene era,” when humans dominate the planet: We estimate that our species does not exhibit adequate population structure to evolve these traits. Our analysis suggests that characteristic patterns of human group-level cultural evolution created the Anthropocene and will work against global collective solutions to the environmental challenges it poses. We illustrate the implications of this theory with alternative evolutionary paths for humanity. We conclude that our species must alter longstanding patterns of cultural evolution to avoid environmental disaster and escalating between-group Read More ›

communication-technology-for-internet-business-global-world-network-and-telecommunication-on-earth-cryptocurrency-and-blockchain-and-iot-elements-of-this-image-furnished-by-nasa-stockpack-adobe-stock
Communication technology for internet business. Global world network and telecommunication on earth cryptocurrency and blockchain and IoT. Elements of this image furnished by NASA

Is Tech Still Innovating?

Is it just me, or is the world of technology feeling a bit … stale?

After the last thirty years of working in technology, innovation in these last few years seems a tad underwhelming. Is it because governments are starting, for the first time, to seriously consider regulating social media and other IT companies? At least some authors think serious regulation will end the rapid innovation of previous years.   This doesn’t seem like the right answer — information technology, and social media in particular, remains one of the most unregulated markets on Earth. The understanding, based on Section 230, that social media companies are passive platforms when they publish user content, and yet have all the rights of a publisher when filtering content, is still the “law of the land.” Very few information technology Read More ›

hand-holding-light-bulb-idea-concept-with-innovation-and-inspiration-stockpack-adobe-stock
hand holding light bulb. idea concept with innovation and inspiration

Are Good Ideas Hard to Find?

This academic paper tells us a lot about why innovation has slowed

Few would disagree that ideas are important to innovation and productivity growth. They are needed for new products, processes, and methods for their conception, introduction, and diffusion. One challenge is how new ideas fit together to enable positive outcomes. Is the initial idea for the concept the most important, the ideas for the implementation, or those for the many problems that must be solved over the course of a technology’s lifetime in order that the technology becomes better in any way we define better? An economics paper by researchers from Stanford and MIT tries to make sense of these issues. Published in the American Economic Review, the paper analyzes the number of researchers needed to achieve improvements in the number of Read More ›

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the drawings from the ceiling of Altamira cave in Santillana Del Mar, Cantabria, Spain

Deciphering the Hidden Meanings of Cave Art

In many cases, there are more dots and lines than animals, which suggests some sort of early information system

In a recent paper on the rock art in Arnhem Land, Australia, a group of archeologists tried out a new method for assessing the 3000 paintings made over the last 15,000 years. Focusing on a series from 15,000 years ago, they attempted to recreate a facsimile of the landscape as it was then, to get a better sense of the scene: We also found that during the period when the sea level was rising, rock art was preferentially made in areas with long-distance views over areas of open woodland. This may have been to facilitate hunting, or to allow careful management of landscapes during a period when many people would have been displaced from the north by sea level rise. Read More ›

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An AI robot sitting alone in a bar, generative ai

AI Will Disrupt Everything — But Forget the Robot Apocalypse!

It will be a slow, steady, measured disruption, like the one the printing press created

As Gary Smith noted the other day, many people, spurred on by the ravings of AI prophets, attribute human qualities to machines and thus easily imagine a tech apocalypse in which chatbots — that cannot, by nature, think — are supposedly running the world. Let’s look at why that is not really going to happen. First, a bucket of ice water from cold, hard reality Chatbots depend on grabbing, repurposing, and disgorging large amounts of copy which, from the creators’ perspective, is copyright violation. Writers, artists, and content managers take copyright violation seriously; creation is their living. So yes they are suing bigtime. Jonathan Bartlett‘s well-advised caution that many different people’s content is used, blended, in these AI products isn’t Read More ›

surreal-brain-tree-in-a-desolate-land-and-a-determined-person-watering-it-using-a-sprinkling-can-man-splashes-the-green-shrub-using-a-water-pot-taking-care-of-mental-health-human-mind-concept-stockpack-adobe-stock
Surreal brain tree in a desolate land and a determined person watering it using a sprinkling can. Man splashes the green shrub using a water pot, taking care of mental health. Human mind concept

A Biochemist Begins To Sense the Limits of Materialism

William Reville seems both confident and uncertain at the same time that science can crack the problem of consciousness

Irish biochemist William Reville, has been the first Officer for the Public Awareness and Understanding of Science at University College, Cork — the sort of post Richard Dawkins has at Oxford. Reville, author of Understanding the Natural World: Science Today (Irish Times Books 1999), informed us last week that “There is every reason to believe that consciousness will eventually yield to scientific analysis just as the general nature of life yielded”. I was somewhat taken aback. What does he mean by the “general nature of life” yielded to scientific analysis? True, we now know vastly more than we used to about life in all its forms. But, as James Tour’s ongoing debates with fellow scientists attest, no one has any Read More ›

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A vibrant blue programming code background represents the intricate work of software developers and the art of computer scripting

Computers Still Do Not “Understand”

Don't be seduced into attributing human traits to computers.

The subtitle of a recent New Yorker article was: “Geoffrey Hinton has spent a lifetime teaching computers to learn. Now he worries that artificial brains are better than ours.” I respectfully disagree. As I’ve repeatedly argued, the real danger today is not that computers are smarter than us but that we think computers are smarter than us. Hinton is extremely intelligent, but he is not the first, and will not be the last, extremely intelligent person to be seduced by a full-blown Eliza effect, attributing human traits to computers. Consider Hinton’s argument about large language models (LLMs): People say, It’s just glorified autocomplete . . . Now, let’s analyze that. Suppose you want to be really good at predicting the Read More ›

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A phoenix rising from the ashes against a fiery backdrop - AI Generated

Why Logician Kurt Gödel Believed in Life After Death

He saw human folly as an opportunity to reform and learn, because our souls are immortal whether we like it or not

Recently Alexander T Englert, a research associate at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, surprised many readers at Aeon with a thoughtful essay on logician and mathematician Kurt Gödel’s defense of the immortality of the soul. Gödel (1906–1978) is best known for destroying the materialist atheist hope that mathematics could be self-consistent without any external origin. Late in life, he also circulated an ontological proof of the existence of God among his friends, still debated today. However, he did not publish his views on the immortality of the soul to anyone except his mother Marianne Gödel, in letters written between July and October 1961. Her side of the correspondence has not survived. Englert tells us that Marianne Read More ›

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Internet law concept

Framework for AI Legislation

Unfortunately, current calls for AI legislation seems to be largely motivated by fear of the unknown rather than looking for specific policy goals.

The sudden rise of artificial intelligence (AI) into the Internet landscape has caused many people to be concerned. The people advancing AI seem to have few scruples about where and how it should be applied. This sudden technological change coupled with the fact that those on the forefront seem to be largely amoral opportunists have raised calls for legislation of AI technology. Unfortunately, current calls for AI legislation seems to be largely motivated by fear of the unknown rather than looking for specific policy goals. In this article, I am going to lay the groundwork for what I think good AI legislation will be. However, before I do that, I want to give some cautionary advice about such legislation. It wasn’t too long ago Read More ›

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When it Comes to New Technologies Like AI, Tempers Run Hot

So far, the most tangible LLM successes have been in generating political disinformation and phishing scams.

Ask an AI-enthusiast how big AI is and how big AI will become, and the answer is likely to be that it is already enormous and that we haven’t seen anything yet. Our enthusiasm is more nuanced. We gave Microsoft’s Bing with ChatGPT-4 the prompt, “How big is AI?,” and received some very specific numbers, along with helpful references: I assume you are asking about the size of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) industry. According to a report by Grand View Research, the global AI market size was valued at USD 136.55 billion in 2022 and is projected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 37.3% from 2023 to 2030. Another report by Precedence Research estimates that the Read More ›

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Why Don’t We Hear So Much About “False Information” Any More?

The new censorship target, “disinformation,” means something profoundly different, and the difference is scary

In a long and most informative post from last March, Tablet news editor Jacob Siegel takes a hard look at the suddenly popular concept of disinformation. “A Guide to Understanding the Hoax of the Century” is essential reading for understanding key ways the concept affects our information world. I’ll touch on just three take-home points here. But first, a reflection. Have you ever wondered why we so seldom hear the term “false information” today? Instead, we hear about misinformation, disinformation, malinformation, etc. These concepts suddenly loomed into public prominence during the COVID lockdowns. All of these alleged information vices amount to deviations from whatever government is saying at any given time. Many public figures and organizations have jumped into the Read More ›

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Tribe of Hunter-Gatherers Wearing Animal Skin Holding Stone Tipped Tools, Stand Near Cave Entrance. Neanderthal Family Ready for Hunting in the Jungle or Migration

What Was It Like To Grow Up in the Paleolithic era?

We are learning much about our ancestors’ lives from the less highly publicized finds

In Aeon late last winter, University of Victoria archeologist April Nowell offered insights into the lives of children in the Paleolithic era, roughly 40,000 to 10,000 years ago. The surprising thing is how much we actually know about that. Nowell, author of Growing Up in the Ice Age (Oxbow Books 2021) points out, in addition to Caves of Lascaux-level archeological finds that make world news, a wealth of additional information, put together, tells us more than we might have expected about Stone Age life. For example, footprints embedded in soft earth or mud in and near a cave tell us that a family, burning bundles of pine sticks to light their way, crawled through a cave called Grotta della Bà̀sura Read More ›

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Milky Way over the Forest

A Commonsense Defense of Idealism

Idealism is the most compelling final destination for former dualists, writes Douglas Axe

Editor’s note: In coming weeks, we will be featuring excerpts from the important new book Minding the Brain: Models of the Mind, Information, and Empirical Science (Discovery Institute Press, 2023). In this short excerpt, biologist Douglas Axe explains why common sense should never be divorced from the practice of philosophy (and science) and offers a defense of idealism as an alternative to both physicalism and substance dualism. Over two centuries ago, Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid described the foundational role of common sense, and the folly of philosophers who think that they have somehow risen above it, as follows: In this unequal contest betwixt Common Sense and Philosophy, the latter will always come off both with dishonour and loss; nor can she ever Read More ›

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Discarded face mask lying in a city street

Being a Good Scientist Doesn’t Mean Being an Effective Leader

Francis Collins admits that they botched the COVID-19 response.

Dr. Francis Collins may be a brilliant geneticist — he headed the very successful Human Genome Project among other laudable achievements — but he has been a disappointing public-health leader and public intellectual. Collins headed the NIH between 2009 and 2021, and was on the front lines of the COVID policy response. Alas, his work in that effort left very much to be desired. Indeed, the other day, he issued something of a mea culpa for being unduly focused on preventing COVID deaths and not enough on the devastating societal impacts his advocated policies caused. In an interview, he said: The public health people — we talked about this earlier and this really important point — if you’re a public health Read More ›

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Community.

You Can Be Social and Still Be Very Lonely

Machines can't meet our need to be known and understood.

In recent years, much attention has been paid to the rising rates of loneliness in our culture. We hear about the declining marriage and birthrates, the loss of extended family relations, and the shocking data revealing how today’s average person rarely has more than five actual friends. You may have felt the weight of loneliness yourself in recent years, particularly given the COVID-19 pandemic and the isolation the lockdown mandates created. It became quickly apparent that human contact is not an added luxury but a human necessity. Perhaps even the most intense introverts among us (of which I’m included) can relate. We were designed for community. However, although common sense might indicate that the cure for loneliness is more human Read More ›

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A child using smart phone lying in bed late at night, playing games. Children's screen addiction and parent control concept. Child's room at night. Sensitive content on screen

Andrew McDiarmid on Teens and Smartphones

We can mitigate the mental health crisis, but we have to act now.

Discovery Institute’s podcasting director and Mind Matters contributor Andrew McDiarmid recently appeared on the Michael Medved Show, a podcast on “pop culture and politics.” Medved and McDiarmid discussed the mental health crisis among teens and adolescents due in large part, per the research, to the explosion of social media apps like Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook. McDiarmid has written on this issue before at length, and strongly believes that if we care about the next generation, we would do well to heed what’s going on with the youths and their smartphones and do something about it. “It all started around 2010,” McDiarmid told Medved, going on to say: Facebook was kicking things into high gear, Twitter was on the scene and Read More ›

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3d render gold metallic pie chart icon on dark background concept for analyze data information

Let’s Dispose of Exploding Pie Charts

Pie charts are seldom a good idea. Here's why.

A picture can be worth a thousand words. A graph can be worth a thousand numbers. Unfortunately, pictures and words can be deceptive — either intentionally or unintentionally. One common type of deception involves the use of two- or three-dimensional figures to represent single numbers. For example, the Washington Post once used the figure below to illustrate how inflation had eroded the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar between 1958 and 1978. To make the figure memorable, each of the dollar bills contained a photo of the U.S. President that year in place of the George Washington image that actually appears on the $1 bill. Washington Post, October 25, 1978 Prices more than doubled between 1958 (when Dwight Eisenhower was Read More ›

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Blurred crowd of unrecognizable at the street

This New Year, Resolve to Stay Human

This year, we will continue to declare that human beings are unique and exceptional.

Scholar Laura Robinson, who got her PhD from Duke, posted the following on X on the last day of 2023: I’m sure other people are getting something out of this but all my direct contact with AI has been so depressing. For example, I used to be part of a bunch of crochet groups and boards on social media and I’ve quit them all because now they are 90 percent people posting AI art that’s obviously not a photo of a real crochet project and everyone praising them for it because they can’t tell the difference. It’s so annoying. It feels like so much creativity has gone out of the world. –Dr. Laura Robinson on X The message made me Read More ›

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Robot hands point to laptop button advisor chatbot robotic artificial intelligence concept.

ChatGPT: You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby  

Reviewing the bot's progress (and problems) from over the last year

ChatGPT is an example of “large language model” (LLM) generative artificial intelligence. LLMs like ChatGPT[i] have come a long way this year. Many writers, including me, have previously identified hurdles thought too high for AI to jump in the near future. In some cases, we were wrong.  Let’s review some of these claims and see how LLM’s have broken through. Can ChatGPT write jokes? Like Commander Data on Star Trek, AI doesn’t understand humor.  Joke writing is hit-or-miss with ChatGPT. I wrote about this in May 2023 where I became impressed with ChatGPT’s hits. I started all my joke writing queries with: “Complete the following to make it funny.”  Here are some of the more jocular responses with Q for Read More ›

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Great Ideas, Like All Ideas, Are Immaterial in Principle

The main reasons we hear more ideas today is that we are building on basic past ideas plus there are many more human beings and communications systems

Lots of people at Harvard don’t like astrophysicist Avi Loeb, on account of his belief that Oumuamua was an extraterrestrial visitation. Okay, we are all entitled, maybe, to a nutout now and then. That one was, after all, both diverting and harmless. That said, some ideas should be called out. Recently, he also said this: What makes human intelligence so unique relative to animals? It is its ability to promote knowledge exponentially fast. Natural selection is often set up through gradual zero-sum games in an environment that offers limited resources. Animals with better motor skills maintain territorial control more effectively than their competitors. This perspective changed drastically over the past century of human history. Modern science and technology now offer Read More ›

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Faith written on rural road

Science vs Religion Debate: Uselessness Cubed

Science no longer means anything like what Dr. Pierre hopes that it does

One of the more useless debates we encounter is “science vs. religion.” Many people approach their religion as a form of science and many other people approach their science as a form of religion. Earlier this year, San Francisco psychiatrist Joseph M. Pierre offered some thoughts recently in Psychology Today, on whether religious faith is compatible with scientific thinking: Here are some of his thoughts and some responses: Faith—that is, choosing to believe something in the absence of evidence—is a normal process for dealing with uncertainty around those kinds of questions. Joe Pierre, “Is Religious Faith Compatible With Scientific Thinking?”Psychology Today, November 14, 2023 Actually, wait. In the vast majority of cases, faith is not belief in the absence of Read More ›

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Maths class

Why Do People Who Want to Dumb Down Education Pick Math?

When right and wrong answers are clear, rewarding the wrong answer is an easier victory for them to celebrate.

For many years, I lived in Toronto (Canada) and attended a church near the downtown commercial core. There is a curious old building in a quiet, treed corner of the church’s lot known as the Enoch Turner Schoolhouse. Two centuries ago, Toronto taxpayers resented paying for poor children to attend school. Today this attitude might seem strange. In any event, back then, a local brewer stepped in and built a free schoolhouse for poor children on that property. Everything old is new again, it seems, including an apparent war on teaching poor kids. In recent years, it has surfaced as a war on math. Why math? Well, there are right and wrong answers in math. So trophies can easily be Read More ›

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3d illustration futuristic background with large sphere and neon dots

The Two Visions of AI Technology

Competing views of AI's potential comprise a new struggle in Silicon Valley.

A month ago, one of the most dramatic power struggles in Silicon Valley’s corporate history took place in the offices of OpenAI. The board of the tech company suddenly ousted CEO Sam Altman for not being consistently “candid” in his communication. Days later, Altman was back at the helm of OpenAI and the board that canned him got the favor returned. In the following weeks, speculation has swirled over the real reasons Altman and his board butted heads so significantly. Altman, although he’s pushing ahead with AI technologies like ChatGPT and DALL-E, also appeared before members of congress earlier this year and recommended AI be regulated. However, he’s much more on the side of “acceleration,” rolling out AI aggressively and Read More ›

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Data analysis, search engine optimization or SEO. magnifier, charts, graphs. ultraviolet and neon screen. AI generative

What Is Google’s Real Business?

Bill Dembski is best known to many of us as an information theorist but recently he has been looking at the question of what big tech companies are doing with our information. That includes a look at the search engines we use to find information. He notes, Google advertises itself as in the business of search. But it is not, except as by-product of its main business. To make its search work, Google has to ingest the entire web, or at least as much of it as it can access. Any information it can access, it can consume. Google is an information feeder. Its incentive is not to help users find the creators of content but to be a one-stop Read More ›

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Placebo

The Placebo Effect Shows That the Mind Is Real

The placebo effect — one of the best attested effects in medicine — just means that you will get better if you think you will. That, of course, is a forbidden concept because it means that immaterial things like ideas — or souls — are real. Which makes sense when you consider a recent finding, that the placebo effect works even when patients know it’s a fake, as in the case of open label placebos (OLPs): OLPs have become a source of fascination, and some consternation, in the medical community in recent years. They seem to work in some cases, but no one can explain why. A 2021 paper in Scientific Reports found that “OLPs appear to be a promising Read More ›

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Modern Electric car rides through tunnel with cold blue light style 3d rendering

Tesla Recall Due to the Short Attention Span of Drivers

Tesla did nothing wrong, but some claim they didn’t do enough right.

Tesla is conducting a recall of about two million vehicles sold in the United States. Why? The recall is mostly due to easily distracted drivers with short attention spans. Tesla did nothing wrong, but some claim they didn’t do enough right. They followed standard design ethics in the development of their cars. On the other hand, Tesla’s marketing was misleading. A lawsuit against Tesla and its Autopilot self-driving software was won by Tesla earlier this year. The jurors in the case found that the software wasn’t at fault. Contrary to instructions from Tesla, the driver was inattentive. In 2018, an Uber self-driving car killed a pedestrian because the driver was distracted by a streaming of the NBC show The Voice. Read More ›

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Big data and artificial intelligence concept. Machine learning and cyber mind domination concept in form of women face on dark blue technology background, 3d illustration.

Defending Why We’re More than Machines

We need to look beyond materialism to understand what it means to be human.

With all the discussion surrounding chatbots and consciousness, you might think there are good reasons to affirm that machines will someday be conscious in the way that you and I are conscious. To affirm this would be to deny that ancient belief that we, as persons, are souls or spirits that could exist apart from our bodies. This notion would certainly be out of place in our scientific discussions today as low-level animals and machines are perceived, by some, as meeting all the necessary conditions for becoming conscious, rational agents who can enter into deep and meaningful relationships upon rational deliberation. But this assumption would be too quick. If we humans are souls (or spirits) and the soul is the Read More ›

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Composite image of 3d image of human brain

You Can’t Always Be Happy

Our dopamine system both excites and tames pleasure

Humans cannot achieve permanent happiness. Earthly pleasures do not ultimately satisfy us. The Bible said it. The neuroscientists have proved it. A non-stop pleasure-filled life is not possible. Death alone does not end human pleasure — the brain does. Research about dopamine explains why. Dopamine is a molecule, a neurotransmitter that carries information between neurons in the brain. Sometimes called “the feel-good neurotransmitter,” dopamine energizes our mood, motivation, and attention. It helps us think and plan, and especially to strive, focus, and find things interesting. The Ups and Downs of Dopamine So, if our brain produces high dopamine levels, then we are happy as long as they remain high, right? Actually, no. Dr. Anna Lembke in her 2021 book, Dopamine Read More ›

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Generative AI illustration of neanderthal prehistoric caveman

Does It Take a PR Agency to Make Neanderthals Human?

It’s interesting to watch how science writing on Neanderthals has changed over the years

Science writer Brian Resnick, interviewing Lydia Pyne, author of Seven Skeletons (Viking 2016), captured the way that popular culture has tended to think of Neanderthal man — as a sort of subhuman: Pyne: think the story that ends up catching the public’s imagination isn’t the religious one; it’s actually The Quest For Fire, J.H. Rosny’s 1911 sci-fi novella. [It’s a story about how several ancient human-like species compete to make fire. In the story, Neanderthals’ fire is stolen by a warring clan of Homo erectus. Alas, the Neanderthals can use fire, but they don’t know how to create it for themselves. If this sounds familiar, it’s because The Quest For Fire was adapted for a 1981 film starring Ron Perlman. Read More ›

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AI chatbot - Artificial Intelligence digital concept

AI Chatbot Claude Passed My “Sex and Gender” Test. I’m Impressed.

The chatbot "Claude" isn't perfect, but it's miles ahead of the others.

The chatbots are improving — fast. One bot, Claude — developed by Anthropic — is truly impressive. In fact, it was the first to pass a test I’ve been giving to various chatbots over the last year. The test is a simple question, designed to determine, first, if the chatbot is just summarizing online stereotypes, or doing real analytic work, and second, if it is ideologically biased. Let me explain. For the last three years, I’ve been working on the controversy over gender ideology, which is responsible for the widespread claim that a child might be “born in the wrong body.” A central theme of this controversy is the shape-shifting uses of the word “gender.” Most people now use the Read More ›

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Chatbot / Social Bot, Smartphone und Chatverlauf

How Do We Define Successful Use Cases for Generative AI?

Current generative AI systems are designed to give us the most common solutions, instead of the new ones we need.

The debate about AI continues to diversify and intensify. Amidst the disagreements between techno-optimists and doomsayers, there is also a debate about the extent to which AI is currently used and will be used in the future.  McKinsey estimates that “generative AI could add the equivalent of $2.6 trillion to $4.4 trillion annually across the 63 use cases [it] analyzed,” five years after it said AI in general can deliver $13 trillion in economic value by 2030. Those are big numbers. On the other hand, Gary Marcus has questioned the existence of successful use cases, consistent with various surveys that show a slow uptake of generative AI. In addition, Gary Smith has repeatedly shown the limitations of generative AI in Read More ›

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Aerial view of coal power plant high pipes with black smoke moving up polluting atmosphere at sunset.

Medical Journal Crosses a Whole New Line

Is blaming commercialism for global warming genuine science? Or just ideology?

The Lancet is at it again. Having previously strived mightily to transform global warming into a planetary health emergency, it has now published a screed attacking “commercialism” for killing the planet. Besides repeating the usual bromides about the need to drastically reduce the use of fossil fuels and transform food production into “regenerative agriculture” — which probably means no more meat — the piece uses the usual politically progressive anti-clarity lexicon that turns the prose of leftist advocacy into impenetrable gobbledygook. From “Climate Change Mitigation: Tackling the Commercial Determinants of Planetary Health Inequity,” by Australian National University’s professor of “health equity” Sharon Friel: Taking this bold mitigation action requires disrupting the consumptogenic system — the system of institutions, actors, multisectoral policies, commercial activities, and norms Read More ›

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Suggestion and feedback sharing for improvement. Listen to team feedback to improve work efficiency. Team communication skill, engagement, idea sharing, open mind, customer feedback and consulting.

Substack Gets It. AI Can’t Replace Human Writers

It was encouraging to see the up-and-coming writing platform boldly herald the uniqueness of human creativity.

A couple years ago, Substack, the writing platform that allows writers to build a subscriber base and earn money for their work, was obscure. Only a few seemed to understand what it was or why it was. When I signed up for it, it seemed like a “newsletter” service, but soon I realized that it was basically a really nice blogging platform. Anyone could make their own Substack account, write what they wanted to, and build an audience, however broad or niche. Eventually, whole publications like The Dispatch and The Free Press started to capitalize on the convenience of building their sites via Substack. In the last year especially, Substack has exploded, with many writerly types now preferring it as Read More ›

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A meteor streaks across the Milky Way during the Perseid meteor shower of 2016.

Science Needs a Mind to Work

The use of science to discredit the existence of mental subjects is fatally flawed.

Editor’s note: In coming weeks, we will be featuring excerpts from the important new book Minding the Brain: Models of the Mind, Information, and Empirical Science (Discovery Institute Press, 2023). In this excerpt, philosopher Angus Menuge explains why the practice of science relies on the reality of mental states. Any attempt to use science to discredit the existence of mental subjects is fatally flawed because the bedrock data for all science comes from observation, which presupposes the existence of conscious subjects. The idea that the findings of physical science are unproblematic but mental subjects are questionable ignores the fact that our only access to physical phenomena is via the minds of scientists. Thus, as Charles Taliaferro points out, one “cannot presume to Read More ›

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press and media camera ,video photographer on duty in public new

How Bottom Up Media Now Threaten the Traditional Top Tier

New media resources like subscription-based Substack are rapidly becoming the venue of choice for whistleblowers with stories to break

Earlier this week I noted the way bottom up media are slowly replacing top down media. A story breaking just then provides, in its way, a perfect vignette. Former Timesman James Bennet has written a memoir in The Economist of the revealing incident in which he was forced to resign in 2020. He concludes that the New York Times has “lost its way.” The uproar centered on his allowing Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton to pen an op-ed which urged that troops be called in to deal with the massive George Floyd riots. As Bennet points out, Cotton’s perspective was widely shared among Americans; thus it merited discussion on principle. But his preference for open discussion resulted in a newsroom Read More ›

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cute artificial intelligence robot with notebook

Psychology Researchers: AI Showed Imitation, Not Innovation

Testing children and adults against chatbots, the researchers found that the chatbots could match things up but struggled to solve problems on their own

Have you ever suspected that a good deal of what hear about AI rendering humans obsolete is, well, hype? Apparently some people at the Association for Psychological Science have been wondering about that too. Enterprising researchers have just published a study in one of their journals, Perspectives on Psychological Science, that distinguished between imitation, which AI does very well, and innovation which … we will let them tell the story: AI language models like ChatGPT are passively trained on data sets containing billions of words and images produced by humans. This allows AI systems to function as a “cultural technology” similar to writing that can summarize existing knowledge, Eunice Yiu, a co-author of the article, explained in an interview. But Read More ›

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Psychology concept. Sunrise and woman silhouette.

If Science Doesn’t Support Dualism — Well, It Should

At Big Think, Kmele Foster interviews five figures in consciousness studies. Not one is a dualist but a listener may come away with a new appreciation for dualism

In “Consciousness: Not just a problem for philosophers” Big Think commentator Kmele Foster interviews five very different thinkers, some of them at a conference at the New York Academy of Sciences. Some highlights to watch for: Panpsychist researcher Christof Koch lost a 25-year wager with philosopher David Chalmers earlier this year because no one has found a “consciousness area” in the brain. He tells Foster: Panpsychism really says, “Fundamentally, everything in the universe has two aspects: has an inner aspect and has an outer aspect.” It’s not something in additional you have to presuppose, but it comes inherent with object, with things. Complex things have complex minds associated with it. Simple things like maybe a fly or Protozoa have very, Read More ›

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Young freelancer working with laptop at home. Side view of male working on freelance at home office.

How Bottom Up Media Are Slowly Replacing Top Down Media

The decline and death of legacy media organizations is speeding up and the media replacing them are much smaller, more numerous and more independent

The recent news that Popular Science has shut down — after 151 years — highlights the increasingly rapid decline of traditional, top-down media. Matthew Yglesias summarizes: The media industry saw several waves of high-profile layoffs in 2023. We had layoffs in January, Gawker shut down in February, Buzzfeed cut 15 percent of its staff in April, Condé Nast laid off staff (including at the New Yorker), NPR cut ten percent of its workforce, and Vox Media laid off four percent of its staff on November 30, after a prior round of layoffs. Last year also closed with a bunch of media layoffs, which came on the heels of pandemic layoffs, so it’s been a brutal few years. Matthew Yglesias, “Another Read More ›

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Teenage boy in a bedroom listening to music through his smartphone

New Report: Parents, Don’t Give Your Kids Smartphones

This has become a national health crisis.

In the late 1800s, a patented medicine geared towards children called Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup was made accessible to the public. The product claimed to calm children down, help them sleep, and whiten their teeth. There was no prescription necessary for purchase, and furthermore, no disclosures of the ingredients. The stuff worked miracles. It really seemed to work. It turns out, unfortunately, that Mrs. Winslow’s magic potion was brimming with both morphine and alcohol. Nothing like getting a baby drunk to get it to go to sleep, right? Mrs. Winslow must have decided that drugging and intoxicating kids was the best way keep them in check. Consequently, medical companies started being required to disclose what was actually in their products, Read More ›

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Laptop illustration with file drawer, data stores concept, blue background. Generative AI

AI and the Chinese Room Argument

We still haven't cracked the mystery of human intelligence.

One of the most well-known criticisms of AI is John Searle’s Chinese room argument. Published in 1980, the argument asks the reader to imagine himself a librarian in a large library full of books. These books are full of rules that convert one string of Chinese characters into another string of Chinese characters. Each day the librarian is given a paper with some Chinese characters on it, and he then looks through his books to convert the characters into a response. Throughout the whole process, the librarian does not know what any of the characters mean. He is just following rules by rote. Searle states that just as the librarian in the room has the ability to translate Chinese without Read More ›

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Brain activity

Philip Goff’s “Why” and Inflated Success

We are still nowhere closer to arriving at a science of consciousness

Atheists continue to advance exotic solutions to consciousness, but here’s what they all show us — in the same way that we need a pilot for ships, we need a pilot of the universe. Now, there’s Philip Goff, who promises the best of theism, yet without theism in his new book Why?.   But Goff advances the further claim, in the Wall Street Journal, that we can even be spiritually fulfilled surpassing the atheist, and yet without invoking what some scientists consider spooky entities — gods, spirits, angels and demons.  However, Goff offers us an even more exotic theory of consciousness than his atheistic competitors, and one that he and others think gives us all that we need without the baggage of actually having to believe Read More ›

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Two chimpanzees have a fun.

Why Does the Proposal for Chimp–Human Hybrids Keep Coming Back?

From David Barash’s perspective, the humanzee’s suffering is rendered worthwhile precisely because it enables the denigration of other human beings

A few days ago, Templeton Foundation’s mailer for its online magazine Nautilus pointed to a five-year-old article by University of Washington psychology prof (emeritus) David P. Barash, advocating the creation of a humanzee: “Doing so would be a terrific idea.” It’s not clear why Nautilus is publicizing the article now. The Soviet Union failed to produce a humanzee. Nothing much has happened since 2018 that suggests that it is imminent. We do learn something of why Barash wants one though: Haven’t we learned that Promethean hubris leads only to disaster, as did the efforts of the fictional Dr. Frankenstein? But there are also other disasters, currently ongoing, such as the grotesque abuse of nonhuman animals, facilitated by what might well Read More ›

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light at the end of the tunnel with silhouette of man

Gary Habermas on Near-Death Experiences

What is the evidence and how many reports of this phenomenon do we have?

In October of this past year, Angel Studios released a documentary about near-death experiences (NDEs) called After Death, regarding people who reported a postmortem perception of the world and functioning consciousness after being physically declared dead. The synopsis on the site reads, After Death is a gripping feature film that explores the afterlife based on real near-death experiences, conveyed by scientists, authors, and survivors. From the New York Times bestselling authors who brought you titles like 90 Minutes in Heaven, Imagine Heaven, and To Heaven and Back, emerges a cinematic peek beyond the veil that examines the spiritual and scientific dimensions of mortality, inviting viewers to contemplate the possibility of life after death. After Death (2023) | Official Website | Now Streaming on Angel Read More ›

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1950's COMPUTER

The Present Shock We’re Experiencing

Our modern obsession with the possibility of truly smart machinery keeps a self-important anti-humanism alive and kicking.

In 1970, the American writer and futurist Alvin Toffler insisted the western world was suffering from “future shock,” the challenge of the times, too much change, too radical a kind, too fast for our social brains. He tapped a nerve: an information technology revolution (Intel’s microchip, the basis of the modern computer, debuted in 1971) was underway. Today the “IT revolution” is old hat, and future shock has morphed into what author and documentarian Douglas Rushkoff once called “present shock.” As the subtitle of his 2014 book puts it, present shock happens when everything happens now. The common thread here is our hyper-technological consumerist society that happily ignores lessons of the past and dismisses history itself as a compendium of Read More ›

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Man and his virtual personality. Background with selective focus and copy space

Who Has Time To Watch All That AI Can Create?

New technologies put deceased icons in direct competition with current actors and entertainers

The 170,000 actors who piled into the Hollywood Writers’ Strike earlier this year probably tipped the balance in favor of the 11,500 writers. Hollywood couldn’t do without that big a hunk of its creative talent for long. And the actors, as they doubtless foresaw, may be more vulnerable than the writers. Consider, for example: ● James Dean (1931-1955), who died in a car accident — after only three movies — will reportedly star in a new film, Back to Eden — as a digital clone: The digital cloning of Dean also represents a significant shift in what is possible. Not only will his AI avatar be able to play a flat-screen role in Back to Eden and a series of Read More ›

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Closeup shot of flint tools in finders hand

Researchers: Early Humans Chose Their Toolmaking Rocks With Care

Different types of flint were useful for different purposes 70,000 to 30,000 years ago

Researchers studying tools from 70,000 to 30,000 years ago in the Middle East have found that the tool makers were careful about which rocks they selected. The research group, led by Nagoya University Museum, noted that during this period (the Middle and Upper Paleolithic) obsidian and flint were common choices: They believe Paleolithic humans understood which rocks were appropriate for making tools and, therefore, intentionally searched for them. According to their hypothesis, Paleolithic humans intentionally searched for flint that was translucent and smooth, as it could be easily broken off the rock face and shaped into sharp edges. Nagoya University. “Paleolithic humans may have understood the properties of rocks for making stone tools.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 1 December 2023.” The paper Read More ›

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blue sunrise, view of earth from space

Alien Review, Part 3

So, what can be said about Alien? It’s okay.

Previously, we discussed how the crew of the Nostromo had accidentally let an alien enter their vessel, and now, the creature is killing everyone. The Nostromo’s mining mission was a red herring. Its real mission had been to find this alien all along and bring it to Earth. Ash, the crew’s science officer, betrayed them. He knew what the alien was the entire time and did nothing to warn the crew. Really, this was a dumb decision, even for a robot. It would’ve been smarter to tell the crew after Kane had been killed, so they would’ve had a better idea what they were dealing with, and at least, stood a better chance of containing the thing. But space robots Read More ›

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Multiracial team of professional medical surgeons performs the surgical operation in a modern hospital. Doctors are working to save the patient. Medicine, health and neurosurgery.

Human Brain Tries Immediately to Compensate for Language Loss

Neurosurgeons recently had a unique opportunity to observe brains undergoing the loss of the speech area and compensating in real time

Neuroscientists have long clashed over a critical question: Can the human brain compensate for the loss of a critical hub like the speech area? If so, how? Epilepsy surgery led by a team at the University of Iowa recently allowed researchers a close look at the live process in real time. Two patients were having the front part of a temporal lobe — which decodes the meaning of language — removed so that surgeons could remove the deeper parts of the brain that were causing their debilitating seizures. The neurosurgery teams followed the usual procedure of asking these patients to do speech and language tasks in the operating room while electrodes were implanted. They would record data from parts of Read More ›

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Macro photo of Toxocara canis, dog roundworm

Can the Simplest Animal Minds Explain Human Minds?

Kristin Andrews thinks consciousness researchers should discard the assumptions of “overwhelmingly white, male and WEIRD” philosophy profs and study more crabs

York University philosophy prof Kristin Andrews, author of The Animal Mind (Routledge 2020), thinks that “Consciousness science should move past a focus on complex mammalian brains to study the behaviour of ‘simpler’ animals.” Reflecting on the Koch–Chalmers bet (philosopher 1, neuroscientist 0), she notes that, despite many research advances, “we still haven’t identified any neural correlates of consciousness.” She credits Christof Koch with helping to turn consciousness studies into “a real science” along with DNA co-discoverer Francis Crick (1916–2004) by focusing away from language and toward neuroscience. They decided to focus on vision in mammals instead. And that she sees as anthropocentric (focused on human-type qualities) and discriminatory. When the study of consciousness is grounded in the study of human-like Read More ›

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In the Era of ChatGPT, Bradley Center and Mind Matters News Defend the Irreplaceable Human

From the COSM conference, a groundbreaking new book, and hundreds of perceptive articles, the Bradley Center has had a significant and successful year.

Editor’s Note: Mind Matters News is sponsored by the Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence, a program of the non-profit Discovery Institute. We rely on donations from individuals like you to continue to operate. If you have benefited from Mind Matters News, would you consider an end-of-year donation to support our work in 2024? You can find more about the work of the Bradley Center in 2023 in the article below. This year the seemingly-miraculous capabilities of ChatGPT and other Large Language Models (LLMs) dominated public discussions about artificial intelligence (AI). While many pundits and tech writers openly wondered whether ChatGPT portended humanity’s doom, the Bradley Center provided a clear voice in defense of the continuing need for Read More ›

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Two Scientists in the Brain Research Laboratory work on a Project, Using Personal Computer with MRI Scans Show Brain Anomalies. Neuroscientists at Work.

On the Limitations of Cutting-Edge Neuroscience

Neuroscientist Joseph Green separates the hype from reality when it comes to current brain research.

By Joseph Green Editor’s note: In coming weeks, we will be featuring excerpts from the important new book Minding the Brain: Models of the Mind, Information, and Empirical Science (Discovery Institute Press, 2023). In this excerpt, neuroscientist Joseph Green separates the hype from reality when it comes to current brain research. Neuroscience is one of the fastest growing scientific fields. Increasing our understanding of how the brain works is often regarded as one of the most significant challenges of the twenty-first century. Recent neuroscientific discoveries have been celebrated step by step in the media as a result of their significance. Yet, to this day, no major technology company has been able to turn scientific knowledge of the brain into profits. Engineering the Read More ›

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illustration, mouse in the kitchen, generative ai.

Mice Pass the Mirror Test — Not a Self-Knowledge Test

Whether an animal recognizes its own image surely has less to do with self-awareness than with the role that sight — as a sense — plays in its life

Researchers reported this week in the journal Neuron that mice have passed the famous “mirror test” — recognizing themselves in a mirror — though only under certain conditions: Researchers report December 5 in the journal Neuron that mice display behavior that resembles self-recognition when they see themselves in the mirror. When the researchers marked the foreheads of black-furred mice with a spot of white ink, the mice spent more time grooming their heads in front of the mirror — presumably to try and wash away the ink spot. However, the mice only showed this self-recognition-like behavior if they were already accustomed to mirrors, if they had socialized with other mice who looked like them, and if the ink spot was Read More ›

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An artificial intelligence robot writer creating generative AI writing

Can AI Write Screenplays for Films You’d Want to See?

That issue was the heart of the Hollywood writers’ strike. How was it resolved? Or WAS it resolved?

Spanish model agency owner Rubén Cruz was having a tough time recruiting models so he created one. They created Aitana, an exuberant 25-year-old pink-haired woman from Barcelona whose physical appearance is close to perfection. The virtual model can earn up to € 10,000 a month, according to her creator, but the average is around € 3,000. “We did it so that we could make a better living and not be dependent on other people who have egos, who have manias, or who just want to make a lot of money by posing,” said Cruz. Laura Llach, “Meet the first Spanish AI model earning up to €10,000 per month,” EuroNews, December 2, 2023 Aitana doesn’t look quite real, of course, but Read More ›

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Natural Dualism

Neuroscience Must Be Dualist, Whether or Not “Science” Allows It

A decade ago, philosopher Riccardo Manzotti and psychology prof Paulo Moderato, both of the University of Milan, published a widely noted chapter in Contemporary Dualism (Routledge 2013): ”Dualism in Disguise.” Briefly, they accuse neuroscientists of being dualists at heart. That is, the neuroscientists really do believe in the existence of the immaterial mind. The point of view most neuroscientists say they believe is physicalism or eliminative materialism: That is, the mind is simply what the brain does, end stop. And in a nice way, Manzotti and Moderato (hereafter M & M) are accusing them of being hypocrites: First, we want to highlight a surprising fact that is often denounced but seldom believed—namely that most of current neuroscientists, contrary to often-heralded Read More ›

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people in the art gallery center

Why AI Can’t Create Genuine Beauty

AI, though a helpful tool in certain contexts, cannot replace the intentionality and creativity of the human person.

Discussions about the encroachment of AI in the arts and humanities have soared in the last year, thanks primarily to the advent of technologies like ChatGPT and text-to-image tools like Midjourney and DALL-E. The conversation is surely merited. Everything from academic integrity in universities and copyright for artists is at stake here as “generative AI” only improves. While fighting for the human voice in a context where the instant and automated is preferred, maybe it’s necessary to also ask what developments in our cultural history made these technologies so welcome. Why is AI so quickly finding a cozy spot in our society? Why did our technological landscape seem to have already set the mold for AI to fill? A satisfying Read More ›

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Robotic hand using wooden geometrical shapes at during machine learning. 3d illustration.

Why the Turing Test Is Becoming Obsolete

Chatbots can easily pass the test without doing any thinking at all

Princeton psychology prof Philip Johnson-Laird and predictive analyst Marco Ragni (Chemnitz) propose a new type of IQ test for machines. In their paper, Johnson-Laird and Ragni argue that the Turing test was never a good measure of machine intelligence in the first place, as it fails to address the process of human thinking. “Given that such algorithms do not reason in the way that humans do, the Turing test and any others it has inspired are obsolete,” they write. Sarah Wells, Is the Turing Test Dead? Researchers wonder whether improved large language models require new tests for machine intelligence, IEEE Spectrum, November 30, 2023 The Turing test, was first proposed in 1950 by computer pioneer Alan Turing (1912–1954) as the Read More ›

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Chinese flags on barbed wire wall in Kashgar (Kashi), Xinjiang, China.

China: An inside look at Neo-Totalitarianism

Writing in the journal Dignitas, Heather Zeiger outlines the Chinese government’s attempt at total control of the everyday life of residents of XinJiang province

Bioethicist Heather Zeiger, a frequent contributor to Mind Matters News, published a longform piece in academic journal Dignitas on the way that China uses total surveillance to keep the restive far western province of Xinjiang obediently in the fold. Briefly, most Xinjiang residents are Uyghurs — Turkic-speaking Muslims — in a country dominated by Chinese-speaking Han people. It is somewhat like the relationship between mostly English-speaking Canada and mostly French-speaking Quebec — except for one really important thing. In Canada, conflicts are almost entirely a paper war. In Xinjiang, totalitarian China appears to be trying to simply assimilate the Uyghurs by force. It is using the full panopticon of modern technology to do so. Zeiger writes, The Chinese government uses Read More ›

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businessman are floating on the sea of paper

The Modern World’s Bureaucracy Problem

The Iron law states that any market reform or government initiative aimed at shrinking bureaucracy ends up expanding it.

The modern world has a bureaucracy problem. We’ve known this since the post-Cold War years, as words like “paperwork” started popping up in media and conversation and a spate of anti-bureaucratic books like The Peter Principle, The Bureaucratization of the World, and Bureaucrats: How to Annoy Them hit bookshelves. In other words, we’ve recognized that bureaucracy is annoying, soul-killing, and worthy of scorn and derision for decades. Apparently, we just can’t do anything about it. The world is more bureaucratic today than ever. We’re going backwards. I’ll admit, I wasn’t planning on writing about bureaucracy. How boring. I try to, essentially, duck and cover. Hide from it. You need a spy-like furtive footprint, a feel for staying unentangled. Slip away sight unseen. No such luck. The Read More ›

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Funny pixelated boss sunglasses on new blue background. Gangster, Black thug life meme glasses . Pixel 8bit style. Color of the Year 2022. Very Peri

From Memes to Hodgepodge

AI again makes an odd mish-mash out of images, this time with memes

AI company Stability AI recently announced a new AI tool called Stable Video Diffusion, which turns images into moving videos. Naturally, Internet users started putting memes into the processor, and as Gizmodo has found, the results are a bit strange to say the least. Thomas Germain humorously writes, For less creative internet users hoping to drum up clicks (can you imagine such a terrible creature), the most obvious use of this tool is to plug memes into the thing. Sure enough, that’s exactly what happened on Twitter—aka X—where a variety of meme-to-video AI creations went unfortunately viral. The results were about as horrific as anything you can imagine. -Thomas Germain, AI Turned These Memes Into Videos, It’s Horrible (gizmodo.com) If Read More ›

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A close - up handshake between a doctor and a patient in a medical office with clean

Do Scientists Need to Learn to Lie More Believably?

As public trust in science diminishes, one serious proposal that scientists should manipulate our beliefs for our own good

Australian philosopher and medic Chris Ellis thinks that science writers should quit telling everyone that the universe is a meaningless void, even though he seems to think it is: We live in a deterministic world without free will, yet we must choose to accept science and prevent climate change. And we must act now! 1.The universe is destined to end in a dead, freezing void and life has no meaning. But we must prevent climate change so our planet does not become a dead, overheated void – and we can continue our meaningless lives. 2.As a result of these paradoxes, those who do not align with science’s claims about the fundamental nature of the universe may not accept scientific arguments Read More ›

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blue earth seen from the moon surface

The Search for ET Should Quit Claiming Earth Is Not Special

How will we assess the raw probability of being alone in this universe when we have no other universe to compare with ours?

Nearly a year ago, MMN offered a series of stories on the many aspects of the intensifying search for extraterrestrial life. An earlier series examined the many hypotheses as to why we don’t see ET. On the one hand, we haven’t found clear evidence, just possibilities. On the other hand, the universe is vast, largely unexplored — and fine-tuned for life. As a result, how we rate our chances of success will likely be governed by prior beliefs. Data from the space telescopes about an increasing number of exoplanets enables more accurate science. Notably, NASA, sensing that the research landscape has changed, has developed a scale for assessing evidence-based claims about ET life. Let’s hope it also means more focused Read More ›

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Traditional building Yap, Micronesia

Can Money Be Pure Information? Merely a Trusted Idea?

A group of pragmatic Pacific Islanders put that concept to the test centuries ago

The villagers of the island of Yap developed a unique currency system that has worked for centuries that provides insight into the way in which money is, first and foremost, a collective idea, not a thing. Yap is one of the Yap Islands, part of the Federated States of Micronesia. For many centuries, Yapese had been in the habit of traveling to another island, Palau, some hundreds of miles distant, where they milled huge limestone chunks into discs with a hole in the centre. Originally, the stones (rai) may have been ceremonial objects or ornaments of value. But at some point, a decision was made to use them as a form of currency. The currency, isolated from others, operates in Read More ›

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Purkinje neuron, GABAergic neuron located in the cerebellum

Researchers: Human Cerebellum Aids Higher Cognitive Functions

At one time, the cerebellum was thought to facilitate only functions like movement. But recent research shows that it’s more complex

The cerebellum, a lower back brain part found in nearly all vertebrates, is vital for most physical movement, including eye movements. In the past, it was not thought to have much to do with thinking. But that is changing. Recent work publicized by the University of Heidelberg in Germany helps to show, for one thing, that the cerebellum’s relationship to the rest of the brain is more complex than that: Although the cerebellum, a structure at the back of the skull, contains about 80 percent of all neurons in the whole human brain, this was long considered a brain region with a rather simple cellular architecture,” explains Prof. [Henrik] Kaessmann. In recent times, however, evidence suggesting a pronounced heterogeneity within Read More ›

Atomic structure. Futuristic concept on the topic of nanotechnology in science. The nucleus of an atom surrounded by electrons on a technological background

Hossenfelder vs Goff: Debate About Electrons Sparks Social Media!

The public has not suddenly become interested in whether electrons exist. Rather, more people are using new media for an increasingly broad array of purposes.

It says a lot about how media are changing that panpsychist philosophy professor Philip Goff and theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder were in a bit of a verbal tussle at X (formerly Twitter) recently on whether electrons really exist. That sort of debate once inhabited historic lecture rooms, exalted think tanks, and the better science magazines. Now, the public has not suddenly become interested in whether electrons exist. Rather, more people are using new media for an increasingly broad array of purposes. X is no longer just a place where a poorly thought out remark on a sensitive subject can ruin a career. The discussion was definitely not a Twitter troll flame war. It was more like this: We can't observe Read More ›

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Top View of Handsome Young Man Sleeping Cozily on a Bed in His Bedroom at Night. Blue Nightly Colors with Cold Weak Lamppost Light Shining Through the Window.

Night Shift: The Brain’s Extraordinary Work While Asleep

Lie down, close your eyes, lose consciousness, and the brain undertakes the heavy lifting that sleep demands.

What is consciousness? “Consciousness is what allows you to think, remember, and feel things.” It includes awareness of yourself. Descartes’ famous line. “I think, therefore I am,” declared his consciousness. Conscious thinking means our brains, our minds, are sensing, observing, memorizing, recalling, decoding, analyzing, calculating, interrelating, cross-referencing, rearranging, expanding, generalizing, communicating, and even creating. Those coordinated operations, part of cognition, require real work. After all that brain work, it should be time for a rest, right? Nope. When a supermarket closes, the workers don’t just switch off the lights and go home. Overnight the workers clean, restock, organize, repair, and get the store ready for the next day. It’s the same for the brain. Lie down, close your eyes, lose Read More ›

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Brain development during pregnancy of unborn baby. 3D rendered illustration.

Study: Babies Start Learning Their Home Language Before Birth

Neuroscience researchers found that newborns responded better to a folk tale in French than in Spanish or English — when French was their mothers’ native language

Just how tiny children, who hardly know anything at all, learn their native language with ease is still largely a mystery. But a recent article in Science Advances offers evidence that, when a child hears speech before birth, the complex neurological processes that enable early acquisition of the language are stimulated. From the open access paper: Human infants acquire language with amazing ease. This feat may begin early, possibly even before birth (1–5), as hearing is operational by 24 to 28 weeks of gestation (6). The intrauterine environment acts as a low-pass filter, attenuating frequencies above 600 Hz (2, 7). As a result, individual speech sounds are suppressed in the lowpass–filtered prenatal speech signal, but prosody, i.e., the melody and Read More ›

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robot article editor writing publicity post robotic journalist copywriting selection and verification artificial intelligence vector scene

Sports Illustrated Used AI-Generated Authors

Human authors for a human audience, please.

The big-time sports magazine Sports Illustrated allegedly used AI “authors” to generate multiple online articles. Maggie Harrison of Futurism wrote recently that when she and her team reached out to the magazine for comment, they removed all the AI-generated stuff from the site. However, they couldn’t do so before several screenshots were taken that confirmed the suspicion. A massive and influential publication was making up a portion of its own writers. Harrison reports, The AI content marks a staggering fall from grace for Sports Illustrated, which in past decades won numerous National Magazine Awards for its sports journalism and published work by literary giants ranging from William Faulkner to John Updike. But now that it’s under the management of The Arena Read More ›

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3d white room with opened door. Brick wall

Is ChatGPT a Dead End?

There is still no known path to Artificial General Intelligence, including ChatGPT.

I want to talk more about Large Language Models (LLMs) and ChatGPT, as it’s all anyone asks me about when I give talks, either in Europe or here in the States. It doesn’t matter where. It’s always ChatGPT. Not self-driving cars. Not robotics. It’s the tech that Sam Altman dissed as “cloning human speech” that has apparently captured everyone’s attention. If I don’t talk about it, I’m not talking about AI. Got it! So I’ll talk about it. Garden Pathing AI Not to go all Altman on everyone, but I think LLMs are nothing but a “garden path” technology. Let me explain. In linguistics, a garden path sentence is one that starts out grammatically, but leads the reader to a dead-end. The Read More ›

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Magnetic resonance imaging of the brain

Claim: What consciousness studies needs is more Darwinism

The Darwinian view of the evolution of the human mind is, at best, a ladder with no upper rungs

Writing at Psychology Today in 2020, University of Toronto psychiatrist Ralph Lewis told us, We have already known for a long time from clinical neurology and from my own field, clinical psychiatry, that without a shadow of a doubt there is no aspect of the mind that is not entirely the product of, and utterly dependent on, the physical brain. Disruption, disassembly or enhancement of brain circuitry (subtle or major) can radically alter any aspect of the mind. And yet the mystery of how exactly the brain produces consciousness has remained unexplained. Ralph Lewis, “What Actually Is Consciousness, and How Did It Evolve?”, Psychology Today, September 2020 (updated October 7, 2023) Lewis thought that evolution explains consciousness: “Once we shed Read More ›

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Chat with AI or Artificial Intelligence. Young businessman chatting with a smart AI or artificial intelligence using an artificial intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI.

Okay, Never Mind. Sam Altman Returns to OpenAI

The OpenAI CEO is back after a brief absence.

Last week, we reported on Sam Altman’s firing from OpenAI and his consequent relocation to Microsoft. At the time it all seemed like a done deal. The board of directors at OpenAI agreed to oust Altman, and days later, the former ex-CEO was offered the opportunity to head up Microsoft’s AI development. That’s all changed now. After an intense corporate battle, Altman is back at OpenAI. The former board of directors at OpenAI ridded Altman on the basis of his apparent lack of candidness in his communication, and they refused to comment on the matter further. However, Altman is back at the helm and with a new board of directors. It’s been a busy weekend. Much of the details on Read More ›

mind-labyrinth-and-business-success-psychology-concept-with-back-view-walking-businessman-to-the-light-spot-in-corridor-with-walls-in-form-of-human-head-stockpack-adobe-stock
Mind labyrinth and business success psychology concept with back view walking businessman to the light spot in corridor with walls in form of human head

The Likely Reason the Human Mind Has No History

Our efforts to explain the origin of the human mind fall flat because we are looking for an origin that probably doesn’t exist

Recently, there was a bit of discussion around my contention that the human mind has no history. We suddenly discover the minds of long-deceased peoples, perhaps in cave art that pushes back the timelines we laboriously constructed. Mental capacity is not the same thing as technical competence. Technical competence is far too heavily skewed in favor of people who arrived later to be a grading system for mental capacity. For example, before mining and metallurgy, we could imagine many things we couldn’t do. The brains behind the James Webb Space Telescope are not necessarily smarter than the first philosopher of science Aristotle (384– 322 BC). But they have tools for acquiring knowledge that he didn’t. So they know many things Read More ›

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Cell microscopic- weevil rye

Directed Goals in Living and Evolving Systems

Nearly every action that an organism does is for something.

Teleology is the technical term for goal-directedness, especially when describing living systems. Teleology has been problematic in the sciences because of the amount of hand-waving that teleology has historically allowed. From the outside, it is difficult to tell if something happened because it was intended or if it just happened to be beneficial. Determining the precise goal can be problematic, even if an action is goal-directed. It is easy to construct a story about why an organism does an action, but how do we ascertain whether this story is true? When are attributions of teleology science, and when does it degenerate to mere invention? Additionally, the lack of ability to measure goal-directedness has often placed teleology in the realm of storytelling instead of science. Read More ›

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New Book Looks at Design in Nature From a Catholic Viewpoint

Catholic thinkers who reject Darwinism don’t focus so much on its claims about universal common descent as on its utter inability to account coherently for the human mind

Popular lore, misleading as it so often is, holds that Catholics are “okay with evolution.” Some are, to be sure. But few observant Catholics believe that human beings naturally evolved from the slime without any divine initiative. The great philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) offered five proofs of the existence of God. The fifth one was: The Argument from Design: All things have an order or arrangement that leads them to a particular goal. Because the order of the universe cannot be the result of chance, design and purpose must be at work. This implies divine intelligence on the part of the designer. This is God. “Aquinas’s Five Proofs for the Existence of God.” In The Catholic Faith Handbook Read More ›

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open eye in space

If Science Were Just Bookkeeping, Fine-Tuning Wouldn’t Matter

Astrophysicist Marcelo Gleiser wishes we would just quit asking questions about why the universe is fine-tuned — as if we could…

Both science and science fiction are better off in a fine-tuned universe where the laws really govern and make sense. That is, they can be discovered by minds because they are the product of a Mind, whether that Mind is understood in traditional religious terms, in panpsychist terms, or some other terms. That seems to be the universe we live in and it is deeply unsettling to many prominent minds in science, including Dartmouth College theoretical physicist Marcelo Gleiser. He took a run at the problem at Big Think earlier this month, making clear that he thinks that we are being forced into an unnecessary choice: It is common to hear that we live in a “Goldilocks Universe,” perfectly tuned Read More ›

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alien concept

Aliens Review, Part 3

Ripley saves the day

In the previous review, we talked about how the marines confronted the alien species and things didn’t go according to plan. Ripley had to drive a tank into the complex to rescue the marines, and they tried to call in a ship to take them off the planet. However, the ship crashed, leaving the survivors stranded. To make matters worse, one of the structures providing energy to the complex was damaged during the ship’s crash, and the whole place it set to blow in four hours. Bishop, the marines’ robot, goes to one of the facility’s satellites to call in another ship remotely, while the rest of the survivors barricade themselves in one of the complex’s rooms near the medical Read More ›

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Generative ai black men twins brothers posing outdoors city street

The Explicitly Human Experience of Growing Up as a Twin

A philosopher muses on growing up as one of a set of two people

At Aeon, Wellington College philosophy professor Helena de Bres, muses on her experience of being a twin. Her experience is statistically predictable; about 3% of live births in the United States are twin births. But of these, only about 30% are identical twins, formed when a single fertilized egg (zygote) splits. Most twins are “wombmates” — siblings who happen to get started at the same time. de Bres starts by discussing a much more unusual situation in which a surviving child has absorbed a fraternal twin prenatally, becoming a genetic human chimera. Cases tend to be identified by accident, in connection with some other enquiry: In 2015, a man from Washington took a cheek swab paternity test that said he Read More ›

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Inside the brain. Concept of neurons and nervous system.

Our Brains Don’t Really Rewire, Neuroscientists Caution

Professors Tamar Makin (Cambridge) and John Krakauer (Johns Hopkins) say that when the brain adapts to losses, it uses “latent capacities,” not new ones

We hear a lot about neuroplasticity, — the way the brain compensates for absences or injuries. A recent neuroscience paper offers a look at what the brain is really doing in such cases. One area that has attracted a lot of attention is human echolocation, the ability of a person who is blind — due to damage to the visual cortex of the brain — to use a form of echolocation to sense objects that cannot actually be seen. Professors Tamar Makin (Cambridge) and John Krakauer (Johns Hopkins) propose that what happens in the brain is something like this: In their article, Makin and Krakauer look at a ten seminal studies that purport to show the brain’s ability to reorganise. Read More ›

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Unstable Atom nucleus with electrons spinning around it technology background

Reflections on “Are Atoms Conscious?” and Philip Goff

Can we admit consciousness without giving into theism?

Upon finishing the recent debate with Philip Goff, which I found to be both fascinating and revelatory, I realized that there was much that I could’ve said but didn’t due to time constraints and tactical decision-making. Even more, there are a few things I now wish I said. Here is the debate below for reference. What I Could’ve Said  I could’ve highlighted more explicitly the features of the unity of consciousness and drove home why it is in fact that variant naturalisms (including panpsychism) just don’t seem to give us what we need. The Unity of Consciousness rules out naturalistic agents. And, here’s one basic argument as to why this is the case.  The basic features exhibited by our consciousness Read More ›

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A sharp pencil between two erasers on a blue background.Unfree creativity and censorship, concept

Attempt To Tackle Censorship in Science Begins Well, Falls Flat

Scientists, we are told, censor “for the greater good.” Well yes, but ALL censors say that. Has anyone ever censored explicitly “for the greater harm”?

A just-published open-access paper on censorship in science has an fairly readable abstract so let me quote most of it: … Popular narratives suggest that scientific censorship is driven by authoritarian officials with dark motives, such as dogmatism and intolerance. Our analysis suggests that scientific censorship is often driven by scientists, who are primarily motivated by self-protection, benevolence toward peer scholars, and prosocial concerns for the well-being of human social groups. This perspective helps explain both recent findings on scientific censorship and recent changes to scientific institutions, such as the use of harm-based criteria to evaluate research. We discuss unknowns surrounding the consequences of censorship and provide recommendations for improving transparency and accountability in scientific decision-making to enable the exploration Read More ›

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Psychotherapist writing notes, giving diagnosis to emotional man

Too Much Focus on Mental Health?

Is our fixation on wellbeing making us miserable?

“We have to deal with the cancer that is mental health.” So tweeted former presidential nominee Nikki Haley back in January. Most people knew what she meant, which was that we have to take mental health seriously and do our best to foster positive mental health. From the way she phrased it, though, you’re tempted to think that “mental health” itself is, well, what she said it is: a “cancer.” The emphasis on mental health and therapy is widespread. In many ways, it is good and proper to encourage people to be more open about their mental struggles and to get help for what they’re going through. The amount of trauma, abuse, and other mental disorders that people hide is Read More ›

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Golden Oscar statue in Hollywood with fireworks in the backdrop. Success and victory concept.

Oppenheimer Steals the Show

Cillian Murphy wins Best Actor, Nolan Best Director
The film scored 13 total nominations, more than any other film in history. Read More ›