^ArchiveArticles

Woman scientist holding lab rat, medicine development, tests on animals

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post

Author
News
Date
November 17, 2020

Categorized
Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience

Tagged
brain, Craig Ferris, Hydrocephalus, neuroplasticity, R222, Rat}

An Old Rat With No Brain Raises Some Very Interesting Questions

_{The researchers had no idea how strange their lab rat was until, in a routine procedure, they scanned its head} _{News

November 17, 2020

5

Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience}

Yes, R222 was only a rat. A rat that turned out to have no brain. But here’s the thing: R222 had lived a normal life as a lab rat for two whole years. According to rat specialists, that’s like 70 human years. Researchers were, to say the least, puzzled. The story begins with a scientist scanning the brains of “very old” lab rats as part of a study on aging. Except that subject R222, otherwise a conventional rat, didn’t seem to have a brain. The brain cavity had collapsed and filled with fluid (hydrocephalus). We can see from the photo that where the control rat has brain, R222 has fluid: On further investigation, researchers found that all brain functions had Read More ›

Communist Party Monument, Pyongyang, North-Korea

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post

Author
Eric Holloway
Date
November 16, 2020

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Economics

Tagged
Bin packing problem, Central Planning, Communism, Featured, halting problem, Innovation, Job shop scheduling problem, Knapsack problem, NP-Complete (NPC) problems, Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP), Undecideable problems, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), USSR}

Computer Science Explains Why Communism Can’t Work

_{Successful communism is not only morally and practically flawed, it is mathematically impossible} _{Eric Holloway

November 16, 2020

4

Artificial Intelligence, Economics}

Communism has been the target of many criticisms. The strongest deal with the mismatch between central planning and individuals’ desires for their lives and with the horrific human rights record of communist nations. Some scholars place the toll in human life due to communism at above 100 million in the 20th century. Those are criticisms of the practicality and ethics of communism. But is it also intrinsically flawed at a fundamental mathematical level? It turns out that the answer is yes. The basic idea behind central planning is this: If the central government makes most decisions that, in a freer society, individuals or small communities would make for themselves, more efficiency will follow—and, as a result, more prosperity. It doesn’t Read More ›

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post

Author
Michael Egnor
Date
November 16, 2020

Categorized
Philosophy of Mind, Science

Tagged
Brain states, Determinism, Featured, free will, Freedom, Jerry Coyne, John Bell, Predictability, Quantum Mechanics, Quantum Physics}

A Materialist Gives Up on Determinism

_{Evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne undercuts his own argument against free will by admitting that quantum phenomena are real} _{Michael Egnor

November 16, 2020

5

Philosophy of Mind, Science}

Evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne has denied free will for years. But most recently, he has said something that puts the whole matter in doubt. A bit of background: Free will simply cannot be real if determinism is true, that is, if everything in nature falls like dominoes after the first one is pushed: If nature is truly like that, our acts, like those of the dominoes, are wholly determined by natural history and physical laws that we do not control. Nearly all arguments against free will depend critically on determinism. But there is a central problem with determinism: It is clear from physics that determinism in nature is not true. In 1964, theoretical physicist John Bell (1928–1990) proposed relatively simple Read More ›

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post

Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
November 15, 2020

Categorized
Medicine and Health, Philosophy of Mind

Tagged
Anders Breivik, C.S. Lewis, Humility, Mario Beauregard, Metabolism, Mindfulness, Mindfulness health benefits, Rick Warren, Spiritual Brain (book), Tibetan monks}

Is Mindfulness Losing Its “Shine” These Days?

_{Maybe, but that’s because it has often been misused. Rightly understood, it’s a blessing} _{Denyse O'Leary

November 15, 2020

7

Medicine and Health, Philosophy of Mind}

In a recent news release from the University of Buffalo, we learn that mindfulness (meditation and similar practices) were not found to be helpful in managing stress at the time it is happening: Where earlier work in this area suggests how mindfulness may help people manage active stressors, the current paper finds evidence for an opposite response. In the midst of stress, mindful participants demonstrated cardiovascular responses consistent with greater care and engagement. Put another way, they actually were “sweating the small stuff.” Bert Gambini, “Be mindful: Study shows mindfulness might not work as you expect” at University of Buffalo However, the study, which measured the cardiovascular stress response of 1001 volunteers also found, Even more curiously, although the study’s Read More ›

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post

Author
News
Date
November 14, 2020

Categorized
Arts & Culture, Science

Tagged
Abraham Loeb, Extraterrestrials (ET), Fast radio bursts (FRBs), Ghosts, Oumuamua, Paranormal research}

Why Do People Who Believe in Extraterrestrials Dismiss Ghosts?

_{The talk about extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence—or otherwise—misses the point. There is no evidence} _{News

November 14, 2020

7

Arts & Culture, Science}

A recent profile in Astronomy focused on Abraham Loeb (pictured) a Harvard astronomer who is convinced that closed minds are a key barrier to our finding extraterrestrials. Statistically, he thinks, they must be out there somewhere: About 25 billion stars, roughly one-quarter of those that reside in the Milky Way, lie in a habitable zone. He rounds that down to an even 10 billion to keep the calculations simple. “And then there are about a trillion galaxies like the Milky Way,” he says, “which means there are about 1022 [10 billion trillion] planets in the observable universe that could potentially host life as we know it.” In other words, searches for extraterrestrial life have barely scratched the surface. “As in Read More ›

Atoms and their electron clouds , Quantum mechanics and atomic structure

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post

Author
News
Date
November 14, 2020

Categorized
Arts & Culture, Science

Tagged
C.S. Lewis, Charles Darwin, Evolution, Extraterrestrials (ET), John D. Barrow, John M. Smart, Matt Williams, Oren Etzioni, Ray Kurzweil, Roger Penrose, Science fiction, Singularity, Transcension Hypothesis}

The Aliens Exist—But Evolved Into Virtual Reality at a Nanoscale

_{That’s the Transcension Hypothesis, the latest in our series on science fiction hypotheses as to why we don’t see extraterrestrials} _{News

November 14, 2020

10

Arts & Culture, Science}

Readers will recall that we have been looking at science writer Matt Williams’s analysis of the various reasons that we do not see extraterrestrials except at the movies. Last week, we looked at the Firstborn Hypothesis: We don’t see aliens because they haven’t evolved yet. And, when they do, we must be careful not to harm their development through colonization. This week is a bit of a deeper dive: The extraterrestrials have evolved so far beyond us that perhaps we could not encounter them. … the Transcension Hypothesis ventures that an advanced civilization will become fundamentally altered by its technology. In short, it theorizes that any ETIs that predate humanity have long-since transformed into something that is not recognizable by Read More ›

Asian doctor wearing face shield and PPE suit to check elder woman patient protect safety infection Covid-19 Coronavirus outbreak at quarantine nursing hospital ward.

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post

Author
Michael Egnor
Date
November 13, 2020

Categorized
Ethics, Medicine and Health

Tagged
Adrew Cuomo, COVID-19, COVID-19 fatalities, Featured, Howard Zucker, New York Department of Health, New York State, Nursing homes, Sally Dreslin}

Why Did New York Have COVID Policy That Killed Elderly Patients?

_{For all practical purposes, the government directive was essentially an order to spread COVID to people in nursing homes} _{Michael Egnor

November 13, 2020

16

Ethics, Medicine and Health}

This is a difficult post to write, and a difficult post to read. I’ve thought about it for months, and what I’m going to say must be said. I see no way around the conclusions I’ll draw. So here goes. On March 25, 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in New York State, the New York State Department of Health, under the signatures of Governor Andrew Cuomo, DOH Commissioner Howard Zucker, and Executive Deputy Commissioner Sally Dreslin, issued a directive to New York State nursing homes requiring nursing homes to accept patients for re-admission or admission regardless of their COVID-19 status. The salient paragraph is: No resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to the NH solely based Read More ›

Rolled Yuan bill on the map of Africa. Chinese investment in African economy

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post

Author
Heather Zeiger
Date
November 13, 2020

Categorized
Business and Finance, Global Technology

Tagged
Africa, Belt and Road, Brahma Chellaney, China, Chinese in Africa, COVID-19, Deborah Bautingam, Debt, Debt Suspension Service Initiative (DSSI), Debt-trap diplomacy, Howard W. French, Kenya, Mozambique, Zambia}

China and Africa: Debt-Trap Diplomacy?

_{The story of China helping Africa modernize resists simple formulas} _{Heather Zeiger

November 13, 2020

8

Business and Finance, Global Technology}

Last week, I reported on the accusations of racism on the part of the the Chinese authorities against African residents of the city of Guangzhou in Guangdong province. While Africa and China have enjoyed a seemingly amicable relationship since the 1970s, several African leaders have pointed to the COVID-19 pandemic as highlighting unresolved underlying tensions. One of those tensions is several African countries’ debt burden. China’s response to requests for deferral in the midst of a pandemic has strained Sino-African relations. China isn’t the African countries’ only creditor. As of this writing, G20 leaders will be meeting to discuss debt-relief and extending the Debt Suspension Service Initiative (DSSI). The service has deferred debt payments by poor countries due to the Read More ›

Blockchain technology. Information blocks in digital space. Decentralized global network. Cyberspace data protection. 3D illustration with elements of a binary code

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post

Author
News
Date
November 12, 2020

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance, Global Technology

Tagged
bitcoin, Blockchain, China, Facial Recognition, Featured, Gaming AI (book), George Gilder, Internet security, Life after Google (book), Robert J. Marks}

While the West Hesitates, China Is Moving to Blockchain

_{Life After Google by George Gilder, advocating blockchain, became a best seller in China and received a social sciences award} _{News

November 12, 2020

7

Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance, Global Technology}

In this week’s podcast, “George Gilder on blockchain and carbon computing,” tech philosopher George Gilder and computer engineer Robert J. Marks, our Walter Bradley Center director, continued their discussion of the impact of artificial intelligence (AI). This time, they focused on the future of blockchain, of quantum computing, and carbon computing.What difference will they make? Quite a lot it seems. Today, we will look at what happens when blockchain goes global. You can download Gilder’s new book, Gaming AI, for free here. The three earlier episodes and transcripts in this series are also linked below. And so now… https://episodes.castos.com/mindmatters/Mind-Matters-108-George-Gilder.mp3 Gilder and Marks discussed both the huge surge of interest in blockchain in China and the central weakness of Bitcoin, whose Read More ›

Global virus and disease spread, coronavirus

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
November 12, 2020

Categorized
Medicine and Health, Social Media

Tagged
Big Data, computer models, COVID-19, Featured, Imperial College London, Jay Richards, Media (traditional), Price of Panic (book), Statistical models, Tedros Adhanom, World Health Organization (WHO)}

Did Social Media Panic Drive Up the Damage from COVID-19?

_{Richards: It was, honestly, terrifying to watch important stories and studies get buried in real time on Google searches.} _{News

November 12, 2020

9

Medicine and Health, Social Media}

Last month, business studies prof Jay Richards, along with co-authors Douglas Axe and William M. Briggs, published a book with some controversial premises: One of them is that many popular COVID-19 fears are the overblown outcome of paying too much attention to social media as opposed to the facts that got lost in the uproar. And that we are paying the price now in human, as well as financial, costs. The Price of Panic: How the Tyranny of Experts Turned a Pandemic into a Catastrophe (October 2020) assembles a massive statistical case. But in this interview with Mind Matters News, Richards focuses on how it affected us: What we all thought was happening and why we thought so—a different story Read More ›

Male Corpus Callosum Brain Anatomy - blue concept

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post

Author
News
Date
November 11, 2020

Categorized
Neuroscience

Tagged
Connectivity, Connectome, corpus callosum, Corpus callosum absence, human brain, neuroplasticity}

How Can People Lead Normal Lives Without a Connected Brain?

_{Roughly 25% of people who lack the brain’s transfer station between the hemispheres live normal lives} _{News

November 11, 2020

3

Neuroscience}

Roughly one in 4,000 people lacks a corpus callosum, the structure of neural fibers that transfers information between the brain’s two hemispheres. Surprisingly, the 25% who have nothing but cerebrospinal fluid do not show signs of abnormality. About half have some brain-related problems and the remaining 25% have serious problems. Researchers wanted to know, how does anyone manage to live normally without a corpus callosum to connect the two hemispheres of the brain? It turns out that the human brain goes into high gear, organizing a fix: In a study published in the journal Cerebral Cortex, neuroscientists from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) discovered that when the neuronal fibres that act as a bridge between the hemispheres are missing, the Read More ›

Illustration of synapse and neuron on a blue background.

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
November 11, 2020

Categorized
Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind

Tagged
File cabinet, hippocampus, Memories, Rodrigo Quian Quiroga, Search engine}

Have Researchers Discovered Why Humans Are Smarter Than Animals?

_{According to a new study, human memories are not stored in patterns, like animal memories, but jumbled all together} _{News

November 11, 2020

4

Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind}

Researchers have believed for fifty years that the hippocampus, the seat of memory storage in our brains, stores patterns of memories separately. That’s true in animals but not, it turns out, in humans, according to neuroscientist Rodrigo Quian Quiroga, “In contrast to what everybody expects, when recording the activity of individual neurons we have found that there is an alternative model to pattern separation storing our memories… Shockingly, when we directly recorded the activity of individual neurons, we found something completely different to what has been described in other animals. This could well be a cornerstone of human’s intelligence.” University of Leicester, “Human intelligence just got less mysterious” at ScienceDaily He found that, human neurons, by contrast, store all the Read More ›

Strongyloides stercoralis (threadworm) in stool, analyze by microscope

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
November 10, 2020

Categorized
Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience

Tagged
Anthony Stretton, Connectome, Featured, George Gilder, Nematode worm, Robert J. Marks}

Stretton’s Paradox: The Paradox of the Lowly Worm

_{Because nature is full of intelligence, the more we learn, even about a worm, the less we "know"} _{News

November 10, 2020

4

Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience}

George Gilder used the term “Stretton’s paradox” in connection with the attempt to understand the human connectome, the white matter in your brain that is as dense as the entire internet. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
November 10, 2020

Categorized
Medicine and Health, Philosophy of Mind, Religion

Tagged
David B. Yaden, Eddie jacobs, LSD, Magic mushrooms, Matthew W. Johnson, Politics, Psilocybin}

Can a Pill Change Your Mind About Basic Issues in Life?

_{The legalization of mind-altering drugs raises the question in the research community} _{News

November 10, 2020

6

Medicine and Health, Philosophy of Mind, Religion}

An Oxford researcher into psychedelics thinks so. Eddie Jacobs offers a disturbing premise, “What if a pill can change your politics or religious beliefs?” The background is that some jurisdictions are contemplating licencing the otherwise illegal psychedelic psilocybin (“magic mushrooms”) in the near future as a treatment for depression. He writes, How would you feel about a new therapy for your chronic pain, which—although far more effective than any available alternative—might also change your religious beliefs? Or a treatment for lymphoma that brings one in three patients into remission, but also made them more likely to vote for your least preferred political party? Eddie Jacobs, “What if a Pill Can Change Your Politics or Religious Beliefs?” at Scientific American (October Read More ›

upset sick mature woman in kerchief looking at smiling reflection in mirror, cancer concept

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post

Author
Gary Smith
Date
November 9, 2020

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Medicine and Health

Tagged
Cancer causes, Cancer cluster, Cancer fortress, Cancer maps, Featured, Phantom patterns, Randomness}

Cancer Maps—An Expensive Source of Phantom Patterns?

_{Is the money the U.S. government spends on tracking cancer patterns a good investment? There’s a way we can tell} _{Gary Smith

November 9, 2020

6

Artificial Intelligence, Medicine and Health}

The U.S. government puts interactive maps on the internet that show the geographic incidence (all the way down to census blocks) of various types of cancer. Millions of dollars are spent each year maintaining these maps, but for what purpose? The problem with cancer maps is that they tempt the curious and fearful to scrutinize the brightly colored chunks, thinking that any patterns they discover must be meaningful. However, statistical patterns are sometimes meaningless. For example, I flipped a coin ten times and got these results: There is a cluster of 3 heads in a row and a cluster of 4 tails in a row: These clusters are not at all surprising. If a fair coin is flipped ten times, Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Jonathan Bartlett
Date
November 9, 2020

Categorized
Social Media

Tagged
censorship, Election fraud, Featured, Hunter Biden, Mechanical censorship, New York Post, Twitter, Wall Street Journal Editorial Board}

Twitter Twitted Over Clumsy Political Censorship

_{Getting the algorithm to censor users can backfire and sometimes the results are funny} _{Jonathan Bartlett

November 9, 2020

4

Social Media}

I once wrote an online forum system called Areopagus. It had a simple “bad words” (profanities, etc.) filter. It looked for common bad words and common variations of those words and automatically prevented any post containing those words or their variations from being posted. This is called “mechanical censorship” and, on its own, it is nothing new. Some users came up with cleverer variations of the bad words than the filter was set for and then moderators had to spot and remove the posts. During the recent presidential election campaign, Twitter has taken mechanical censorship to new levels. Instead of censoring ways of speaking, Twitter has decided to censor specific ideas and thoughts. Automatic censorship of ideas is a problematic Read More ›

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post

Author
News
Date
November 8, 2020

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Science

Tagged
Alchemy (computer program), Fazale Rana, Fine-tuning, Origin of life}

Has a Computer Algorithm Discovered the Secret of Life?

_{In the past, a curious pattern wouldn’t have been visible due to the lack of computing resources} _{News

November 8, 2020

4

Artificial Intelligence, Science}

Artificial intelligence has enabled a remarkable level of automation of chemistry, with great benefits to us all. Once upon a time there was a multivolume Beilstein’s Handbook of Organic Chemistry, but it is now an online database. Biochemist Fazale Rana (pictured) tells us that, because so much has been discovered about the chemistry of the world we live in, “Learning to master Beilstein’s Handbook is no easy task. In fact, there are textbooks devoted to teaching chemists how to use this massive database effectively.” So putting Beilstein online doesn’t make it a walk in the park but does make it computable. And some have started computing around the origin of life. Origin of life studies have been hampered by the Read More ›

Dog with ball in mouth runs from kid playing chase game at summer lawn

^{Type
post

Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
November 8, 2020

Categorized
Natural Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind

Tagged
Chimpanzees, Dogs, Hayden Kee, Pointing behavior}

Is It Empathy, Not Intellect, That Makes Humans Unique?

_{Could empathy create intellect, and not the other way around?} _{Denyse O'Leary

November 8, 2020

5

Natural Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind}

A Canadian philosopher of mind and language offers a refreshingly thoughtful approach to the uniqueness of human ways of thinking: He reflects on the difference between what is happening when his dog Mackenzie and his eighteen-month-old nephew William bring him an object to play with: For Mackenzie, there is only one game in town. We have been playing it for years, and it never gets old. Sure, I mix things up a bit from time to time. A little sleight of hand can send Mackenzie left while I toss right. Or I fake a throw then hide the ball behind my back, after which I mirror Mackenzie’s stupefied, slightly annoyed look with my own incredulous one. (‘Where did it go?’) Read More ›

Blue hydraulic Clow Crane used for picking up scrap metal at recycling yard

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
November 7, 2020

Categorized
Arts & Culture, Ethics

Tagged
Anand Vaidya, Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), Data (fictional robot), Lovelace test, Measure of a Man (Star Trek), Science fiction, Star Trek, Turing Test}

Is It Ethical To Scrap Star Trek’s Commander Data for Research?

_{A philosopher offers a thoughtful review of the case} _{News

November 7, 2020

4

Arts & Culture, Ethics}

In a thought-provoking essay, San José State University philosopher Anand Vaidya asks, should it be okay to dismantle Star Trek‘s robotic crew member Data for research purposes, as proposed in the “The Measure of a Man” episode in Star Trek: The Next Generation? Some of the Trek brass seemed to think so: Vaidya disagrees: As real artificial intelligence technology advances toward Hollywood’s imagined versions, the question of moral standing grows more important. If AIs have moral standing, philosophers like me reason, it could follow that they have a right to life. That means you cannot simply dismantle them, and might also mean that people shouldn’t interfere with their pursuing their goals. Anand Vaidya, “If a robot is conscious, is it Read More ›

Alien Planet - 3D rendered computer artwork

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
November 7, 2020

Categorized
Arts & Culture

Tagged
Abraham Loeb, Firstborn Hypothesis, Matt Williams, Privileged Planet hypothesis, R. N. Bracewell, Rare Earth hypothesis, Science fiction}

What If We Don’t See Aliens Because They Have Not Evolved Yet?

_{If so, not only did we emerge during a favorable time in the universe’s history but we could end up suppressing them} _{News

November 7, 2020

7

Arts & Culture}

Readers will recall that we have been looking at science writer Matt Williams’s analysis of the various reasons offered as to why we do not see extraterrestrials except at the movies. Last week, we looked at the Brief Window hypothesis (there is only a comparatively short period of time during which a civilization could make such contact). But there is another, darker possibility: We are ahead of them. And if we are not careful, we could end up suppressing them. That’s the Firstborn hypothesis: The universe has only begun to be hospitable to intelligent life and humans are among the first to benefit from that fact. The current model of the universe shows it radiating from the Big Bang over Read More ›