Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

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IQ test Result, Very Superior Intelligence Quotient.
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post
Author
Michael Egnor
Date
April 27, 2021
Categorized
Education, Philosophy of Mind
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If IQ Is Inherited, Is the Intellect Simply Material?

Michael Egnor
April 27, 2021
6
Education, Philosophy of Mind

A reader writes: I was reading your writings about mind and brain, and I was wondering about how IQ relates to all of this. Since IQ seems to have a large heritable component to it, and the only thing that can be inherited genetically is physical traits, does IQ and its heritability pose a threat to mind-body dualism? It seems to me that someone with an IQ of 75 would have a very different mental experience than someone with an IQ of 145, and that they would also make decisions very differently, which, to me at least, would pose a threat to free will as well, since wouldn’t a certain level of intelligence be required to make decisions freely in Read More ›

automation engineer
At the Factory: Automation Engineer Uses Laptop for Programming Robotic Arm. New Era in Automatic Manufacturing Industry.
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post
Author
Stephen Berger
Date
April 27, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Philosophy of Mind, Science
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Will Humans Ever Be Fully Replaceable by AI? Part 1

We must first determine, what is a person and what is the nature of the universe in which a person can exist?
Stephen Berger
April 27, 2021
15
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Philosophy of Mind, Science

The title question has been around for quite some time. In this discussion, I would like to take an ontological look at this question. What is the essential nature of being a person? To fully replace humans, what must AI machines become capable of? IF we want to consider the possibility of making humans obsolete, we need to know what is the essence of humanity? What is the ontological nature of a person? What characteristics define being a person? Even before we can address the essential nature of a person, we must identify the essential nature of the universe in which that person exists. What is the universe? How many dimensions does it have? Can the universe, or in it Read More ›

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Collage of portraits of young emotional people on multicolored background in neon. Concept of human emotions, facial expression, sales. Listening to music, delighted, winner, shocked. Flyer for ad
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post
Author
News
Date
April 26, 2021
Categorized
Business and Finance, Education, Ethics, Science, Surveillance, Work
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AI Prof Sounds Alarm: AI “Emotion Detectors” Are Faulty Science

An industry worth over $30 billion uses emotion recognition technology (ERT) on school children and potential hires
News
April 26, 2021
4
Business and Finance, Education, Ethics, Science, Surveillance, Work

Kate Crawford, a principal researcher at Microsoft, and author of Atlas of AI (2021), is warning at Nature that the COVID-19 pandemic “is being used as a pretext to push unproven artificial-intelligence tools into workplaces and schools.” The software is touted as able to read the “six basic emotions” via analysis of facial expressions: During the pandemic, technology companies have been pitching their emotion-recognition software for monitoring workers and even children remotely. Take, for example, a system named 4 Little Trees. Developed in Hong Kong, the program claims to assess children’s emotions while they do classwork. It maps facial features to assign each pupil’s emotional state into a category such as happiness, sadness, anger, disgust, surprise and fear. It also Read More ›

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Futuristic heads up display blue green abstract interface
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post
Author
Eric Holloway
Date
April 26, 2021
Categorized
Philosophy, Science
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How the Explanatory Filter Can Help Quash Conspiracy Theories

I found Dembski’s explanatory filter quite helpful in investigating voter fraud claims
Eric Holloway
April 26, 2021
10
Philosophy, Science

William Dembski’s explanatory filter is a decision strategy for identifying events that are unlikely to have happened purely by chance. The filter proceeds in three main steps, which can be illustrated via the plot device in Contact, a novel (1985) by Carl Sagan, followed by a film (1997): Eliminate events of large probability (necessity): A radio telescope receives a pattern of beeps and pauses. Perhaps the pattern seems strange to us but we could just be overinterpreting inevitable space noise. Eliminate events of medium probability (chance): The pattern turns out to be a sequence of prime numbers. However, large randomly generated numbers sometimes feature apparent patterns (five 5s in a row, for example) that don’t signify anything. Specify the event Read More ›

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Chat bot concept
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post
Author
William A. Dembski
Date
April 25, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind
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Here’s a Terrific Video Featuring Myth of AI Author Erik Larson

Larson, an AI professional, explains why the popular noise we hear about AI “taking over” is hype
William A. Dembski
April 25, 2021
1
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind

I’ve been reviewing philosopher and programmer Erik Larson’s The Myth of Artificial Intelligence. See my earlier posts, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Here’s a terrific video interview that Larson did with Academic Influence. It was done before his book was released and gives a succinct summary of the book. It’s short (15 minutes, compared to the hour-long interview with Brookings described in my previous post). For not only the full video of this interview with Larson but also a transcript of it, go to the Academic Influence website here. For a nice period-piece video on Joseph Weizenbaum’s ELIZA program, check out this YouTube video:

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Villa Melzi - Dante e Beatrice
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post
Author
Michael Egnor
Date
April 25, 2021
Categorized
Ethics, Philosophy
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One of the Greatest Poets Asks, Can We Be Good Without Free Will?

As a centuries old poem shows, materialism is a logical mistake and not really a coherent system of belief
Michael Egnor
April 25, 2021
6
Ethics, Philosophy

Medieval Italian poet Dante Alighieri, exiled for life from his native Florence, took the opportunity to write a magnificent trilogy — the Divine Comedy — in which he tours Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. The Comedy is more than a poetic masterpiece. It is a profound philosophical and theological reflection on this life and on eternity. Remarkably, although Dante’s immediate guides through the unseen worlds are, famously, the Roman poet Virgil (70 BC–19 BC) and later, a childhood sweetheart Beatrice (who died young), his philosophical guide is the philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas. The metaphysics, the ethics, and the theology of the Divine Comedy deeply reflect Thomas’s influence. That is remarkable, considering that Dante (1265–1321 AD), who was only a child Read More ›

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Big brother
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post
Author
News
Date
April 25, 2021
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Arts & Culture, Mathematics, Philosophy, Religion, Science, Technocracy
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How Orwell’s 1984 Can Be Seen As an Argument for God’s Existence

Atheism is not only fundamental to the power of the Party in 1984 but is also its central weakness
News
April 25, 2021
5
Arts & Culture, Mathematics, Philosophy, Religion, Science, Technocracy

University of Nebraska political science prof Carson Holloway (pictured) asks, “Does discrediting the existence of God promote enlightened thinking or a lack of objective reality?” Unpacking the social structure in George Orwell’s classic totalitarian dystopia, 1984 (1949), he observes that not only does the Party have the power of life and death but the atheistic Party faithful fear death as utter annihilation: Atheism is the moral basis of the Party’s unlimited hold on its own members because it makes them terrified of death as absolute nonexistence. Like any government, the Party in 1984 has the power to kill disobedient subjects. Party members, however, view death not just as the end of bodily life, but as a complete erasure of their Read More ›

detective-board-with-photos-of-suspected-criminals-crime-scenes-and-evidence-with-red-threads-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
Detective board with photos of suspected criminals, crime scenes and evidence with red threads
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post
Author
William A. Dembski
Date
April 24, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy
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Why Computers Will Likely Never Perform Abductive Inferences

As Erik Larson points out in The Myth of Artificial Intelligence, what computers “know” must be painstakingly programmed
William A. Dembski
April 24, 2021
5
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy

I’ve been reviewing philosopher and programmer Erik Larson’s The Myth of Artificial Intelligence. See my earlier posts, here, here, here, here, and here. Larson did an interesting podcast with the Brookings Institution through its Lawfare Blog shortly after the release of his book. It’s well worth a listen, and Larson elucidates in that interview many of the key points in his book. The one place in the interview where I wish he had elaborated further was on the question of abductive inference (aka retroductive inference or inference to the best explanation). For me, the key to understanding why computers cannot, and most likely will never, be able to perform abductive inferences is the problem of underdetermination of explanation by data. This may seem like a mouthful, but the idea is straightforward. Read More ›

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alien
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Author
News
Date
April 24, 2021
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Philosophy, Science
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Zoologist: Law of Evolution Can Predict What Aliens Will Be Like

Arik Kershenbaum’s new book argues that convergent evolution on Earth helps us understand what to expect from extraterrestrial life
News
April 24, 2021
5
Philosophy, Science

Cambridge zoologist Arik Kershenbaum, author of Zoologist’s Guide to the Galaxy (2021), thinks that convergent evolution here on Earth can offer us guides to what must happen on other planets that can support life. “Convergent evolution” means that radically different life forms arrive at the same solutions. He told science writer Dan Falk in an interview: Sometimes this “convergence” of traits is for something obviously useful, like wings. But sometimes convergence produces bizarrely similar creatures that share so many characteristics, it can be hard to believe they’re not closely related. The recently extinct thylacine [a large predatory marsupial native to Tasmania and mainland Australia], for example, could easily be mistaken for a peculiar breed of dog, but it’s much more Read More ›

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Visualization of Painted Dream
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Author
News
Date
April 24, 2021
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Arts & Culture
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Sci-fi Saturday: “Limbo” Profiles a Future Approach to Punishment

The convict must live in a vision, induced during a coma, as the victim (or bereft loved one), in an attempt to rehabilitate him by teaching empathy
News
April 24, 2021
11
Arts & Culture

“Limbo” (2020) at DUST by Andrew Morris and Rob Silva (April 8, 2021 at DUST, 24:21) “One man’s search for his kidnapped daughter causes his reality to unravel.” A most interesting premise: In the future, there are no prisons. There are no institutions with high walls and barred cells. Instead, the convicted are placed into a coma and forced to live out their sentence within a dream, with reality inverted, as the victim of their own crime. You killed someone’s wife? Your sentence is a life where your spouse has been taken from you, leaving you to toil in grief and mental anguish. But for ‘inmates’ who are wrongfully convicted, and are forced to live in their punishing alternate reality Read More ›

maze holes.jpg
Labyrinth
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post
Author
News
Date
April 24, 2021
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Philosophy of Mind, Science
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Are We Humans Getting Smarter or Have We Peaked?

The really surprising thing, science writer David Robson notes, is that it may not matter as much as we think
News
April 24, 2021
5
Philosophy of Mind, Science

The Flynn effect — where tested intelligence increased over past generations due to better health and more education — is said to be slowing. Of course, such findings are difficult to assess because they are subject to value judgments. But David Robson, author of The Intelligence Trap: Why smart people make dumb mistakes (2019), offers some useful observations, including asking what does the Flynn effect really measure?: James Flynn himself has argued that it is probably confined to some specific reasoning skills. In the same way that different physical exercises may build different muscles – without increasing overall “fitness” – we have been exercising certain kinds of abstract thinking, but that hasn’t necessarily improved all cognitive skills equally. And some Read More ›

Digital Brain
Digital brain and mind upload or uploading human thinking concept as a neurological organ being tranformed to digitalized pixels uploaded to virtual space or a cloud server as an artificial intelligence symbol or neuroscience technology in a 3D illustration style.
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post
Author
William A. Dembski
Date
April 23, 2021
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Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind
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Are We Spiritual Machines? Are We Machines at All?

Inventor Ray Kurzweil proposed in 1999 that within the next thirty years we will upload ourselves into computers as virtual persons, programs on machines
William A. Dembski
April 23, 2021
3
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind

I’ve been reviewing philosopher and programmer Erik Larson’s The Myth of Artificial Intelligence. See my earlier posts, here, here, here, and here. The event at which I moderated the discussion about Ray Kurzweil’s The Age of Spiritual Machines was the 1998 George Gilder Telecosm conference, which occurred in the fall of that year at Lake Tahoe (I remember baseball players Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire chasing each other for home run leadership at the time). In response to the discussion, I wrote a paper for First Things titled “Are We Spiritual Machines?” — it is still available online at the link just given, and its arguments remain current and relevant. According to The Age of Spiritual Machines , machine intelligence is the next great step in the evolution of intelligence. That man Read More ›

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Purple transparent molecule model over purple
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post
Author
News
Date
April 22, 2021
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Mathematics, Science
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Could the World Above the Level of the Particle Be Superposed?

It’s been done with molecules. After that, there are barriers
News
April 22, 2021
6
Mathematics, Science

In last week’s podcast,,” our guest host, neurosurgeon Michael Egnor, interviewed idealist philosopher of science and physicistBruce Gordon on how the quantum physics that underlies our universe makes much more sense if we have a non-materialist view of reality. Even then, it challenges our conventional view of how nature “must” work: We were introduced to the quantum eraser experiment, which showed that what happens at the level of individual particles depends on whether you choose to measure it or not and to non-locality, the Cheshire Cat’s science of being in no one particular place at any time. Particles can do that even if we can’t. But wait: Is it possible that things larger than particles can in fact do that Read More ›

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In the Futuristic Laboratory Creative Engineer Works on the Transparent Computer Display. Screen Shows Interactive User Interface with Deep Learning System, Artificial Intelligence Prototype.
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post
Author
William A. Dembski
Date
April 22, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning
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A Critical Look at the Myth of “Deep Learning”

“Deep learning” is as misnamed a computational technique as exists.
William A. Dembski
April 22, 2021
2
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning

I’ve been reviewing philosopher and programmer Erik Larson’s The Myth of Artificial Intelligence. See my earlier posts, here, here, and here. “Deep learning” is as misnamed a computational technique as exists. The actual technique refers to multi-layered neural networks, and, true enough, those multi-layers can do a lot of significant computational work. But the phrase “deep learning” suggests that the machine is doing something profound and beyond the capacity of humans. That’s far from the case. The Wikipedia article on deep learning is instructive in this regard. Consider the following image used there to illustrate deep learning: Note the rendition of the elephant at the top and compare it with the image of the elephant as we experience it at the bottom. The image at the bottom is rich, Read More ›

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Changing the Past
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post
Author
Heather Zeiger
Date
April 22, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Global Technology, Social Media, Technocracy
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China: Snitching on Those Who Recall Non-Approved History

The Communist Party of China wants its centennial to proceed this year without memory of the millions dead in the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and Tiananmen Square
Heather Zeiger
April 22, 2021
7
Artificial Intelligence, Global Technology, Social Media, Technocracy

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” – George Orwell, 1984 The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was formed on July 23, 1921, so is gearing up for the hundredth anniversary of its founding with the theme “Forever Following the Party.” In preparation, the Cyberspace Administration of China has launched a hotline for citizens to report online statements that contradict the Party’s official version of its history. A translation of the announcement from the Central Network Information Office Reporting Center is available on former American diplomat David Cowhig’s blog: One part of the announcement reads: In order to avoid misleading the public with false statements, maintain a clear cyberspace and create a good atmosphere Read More ›

computer questions.jpg
Businessman with a computer monitor head and question marks
Type
post
Author
William A. Dembski
Date
April 21, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind
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Artificial Intelligence Understands by Not Understanding

The secret to writing a program for a sympathetic chatbot is surprisingly simple…
William A. Dembski
April 21, 2021
4
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind

I’ve been reviewing philosopher and programmer Erik Larson’s The Myth of Artificial Intelligence. See my two earlier posts, here and here. With natural language processing, Larson amusingly retells the story of Joseph Weizenbaum’s ELIZA program, in which the program, acting as a Rogerian therapist, simply mirrors back to the human what the human says. Carl Rogers, the psychologist, advocated a “non-directive” form of therapy where, rather than tell the patient what to do, the therapist reflected back what the patient was saying, as a way of getting the patient to solve one’s own problems. Much like Eugene Goostman, whom I’ve already mentioned in this series, ELIZA is a cheat, though to its inventor Weizenbaum’s credit, he recognized from the get-go that it was a cheat. Read More ›

mad-wide-smile-with-many-teeth-on-black-background-deco-element-card-flyer-base-clip-art-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
Mad wide smile with many teeth on black background. Deco element, card-, flyer- base, clip art
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post
Author
News
Date
April 21, 2021
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Mathematics, Philosophy, Science
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IS the Moon There If No One Looks? Or Is There No “There” There?

Elementary particles do not need to be in a particular place until they are observed and then that's where they are
News
April 21, 2021
7
Mathematics, Philosophy, Science

In last week’s podcast,,” our guest host, neurosurgeon Michael Egnor, interviewed idealist philosopher of science and physicist Bruce Gordon on how the quantum physics that underlies our universe makes much more sense if we have a non-materialist view of reality. Even then, it challenges our conventional view of how nature “must” work: We were introduced to the quantum eraser experiment, which showed that what happens at the level of individual particles depends on whether you choose to measure or not. This segment looks at non-locality, the science of being in no one particular place. Elementary particles can do that too: https://episodes.castos.com/mindmatters/Mind-Matters-130-Bruce-Gordon.mp3 This portion begins at 12:36 min. A partial transcript, Show Notes, and Additional Resources follow. Bruce Gordon: So another Read More ›

car and bus accident.jpg
Car and bus accident, bumper to bumper
Type
post
Author
William A. Dembski
Date
April 20, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind, Programming
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Automated Driving and Other Failures of AI

How would autonomous cars manage in an environment where eye contact with other drivers is important?
William A. Dembski
April 20, 2021
4
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind, Programming

Yesterday I posted a review here of philosopher and programmer Erik Larson’s The Myth of Artificial Intelligence. There’s a lot more I would like to say. Here are some additional notes, to which I will add in a couple of future posts. Three of the failures of Big Tech that I listed earlier (Eugene Goostman, Tay, and the image analyzer that Google lobotomized so that it could no longer detect gorillas, even mistakenly) were obvious frauds and/or blunders. Goostman was a fraud out of the box. Tay a blunder that might be fixed in the sense that its racist language could be mitigated through some appropriate machine learning. And the Google image analyzer — well that was just pathetic: either retire the image Read More ›

Businessman hand holding tablet and Yuan currency sign on digital map backgroung.Chinese Yuan digital currency and circuit background.Technology digital Financial and china cryptocurrency concept.
Businessman hand holding tablet and Yuan currency sign on digital map backgroung.Chinese Yuan digital currency and circuit background.Technology digital Financial and china cryptocurrency concept.
Type
post
Author
Heather Zeiger
Date
April 20, 2021
Categorized
Business and Finance, Data Privacy, Global Technology, Surveillance, Technocracy
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Why China Is Making a Bold Gamble With Digital Currency

“Controllable anonymity” means that all transactions between individuals are visible to the People’s Bank and trackable by the Chinese government
Heather Zeiger
April 20, 2021
8
Business and Finance, Data Privacy, Global Technology, Surveillance, Technocracy

Last week, China announced the national rollout of the electronic yuan, a plan in the works since 2014. The e-CNY* or Digital Currency Electronics Payment (DCEP) was piloted last year in four major Chinese cities: The digital yuan resides in cyberspace, available on the owner’s mobile phone — or on a card for the less tech-savvy — and spending it doesn’t strictly require an online connection. It appears on a screen with a silhouette of Mao Zedong, looking just like the paper money. In tests in recent months, more than 100,000 people in China have downloaded a mobile-phone app from the central bank enabling them to spend small government handouts of digital cash with merchants, including Chinese outlets of Starbucks Read More ›