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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
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.
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
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
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’tIn 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 ›
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?
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
Kurt Gödel’s “Incompleteness Theorem”
For Kurt Gödel, mathematics pointed to a remarkable world of transcendent order and meaning
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
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
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
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
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.
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 ›
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?
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 beLast 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 ›
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
The “Stay Human” Movement
How we can maintain human exceptionalism in an automated age