Denyse O'Leary

Roboter auf Tastatur, Methapher für Chatbot / Socialbot, Algorithmen und künstliche Intelligenz

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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
May 13, 2022

Categorized
Business and Finance, Social Media

Tagged
Elon Musk (and Twitter), Elon Musk (Canadian connections), Elon Musk (media hostility), Jacob Carpenter, Media (advocating censorship), Twitter (and Elon Musk), Twitterbots}

Musk’s Twitter Deal Is at Risk Amid Fierce Attacks on Him

_{Tarred as a privileged white South African, Musk moved to Canada at 17 to avoid serving in South Africa’s apartheid army} _{Denyse O'Leary

May 13, 2022

4

Business and Finance, Social Media}

Traditional media and many tech mavens are elated that Elon Musk’s Twitter deal is now shaky. It’s no secret that they were unhappy with it and with him. The New York Times launched an extraordinary attack on Musk on May 5, tweeting “Elon Musk grew up in elite white communities in South Africa, detached from apartheid’s atrocities and surrounded by anti-Black propaganda. He sees his takeover of Twitter as a free speech win but in his youth did not suffer the effects of misinformation.” In reality, Musk left for Canada at the age of 17, to avoid serving in the South African military, whose principal purpose was to oppress black South Africans. He had Canadian citizenship by way of his Read More ›

Close up of small caged colorful birds in pet store in morning sun

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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
May 9, 2022

Categorized
Censorship, Global Technology

Tagged
Andrew McDiarmid, Elon Musk (and Twitter), Jacques Ellul, Pregnant man emoji, Twitter (and Elon Musk)}

Can Elon Musk Really Stop Big Tech From Controlling Us?

_{We usually don’t realize how far it has already gone in efforts to control our thinking} _{Denyse O'Leary

May 9, 2022

3

Censorship, Global Technology}

Think it doesn’t control you? Andrew McDiarmid can offer you some examples of pervasive efforts to control our thinking: It appeared in Apple’s iPhone software update this year, when a “pregnant man” emoji was quietly added to keyboards. It’s seen in Google’s new (and currently stalled) “inclusive language” feature, which autocorrects gendered terms like “landlord,” “policeman” or “housewife.” Andrew McDiarmid, “Big Tech is subtly controlling our lives—and we need to fight back” at New York Post (May 7, 2022) Surely, almost nobody on the planet, apart from small pressure groups, had asked for a “pregnant man” emoji. The concept has nothing whatever to do with the serious problems many pregnant women face worldwide. Landlord? Again, many people worldwide face problems Read More ›

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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
April 20, 2022

Categorized
Ethics, Natural Intelligence

Tagged
Animals (ethical sense), Frans de Waal (on chimpanzees and ethics), James Hutton}

Claim: Research Shows That Animals Have a Moral Sense

_{We are informed at Nautilus, the Templeton Foundation’s magazine, that “ It’s time to take moral emotion in animals seriously.” Really?} _{Denyse O'Leary

April 20, 2022

4

Ethics, Natural Intelligence}

Philosopher James Hutton starts out his article as a sort of a “trick.” He describes the animals he works with as if they were colleagues. Then, in paragraph four, he announces, “But there are a couple of important details about Amy and Sidney that you should know. The first is that they aren’t workers in any conventional sense, but participants in an experiment.” Coming to the point, they’re dogs. And anyone who had been reading carefully would realize that they were animals, probably dogs or horses. But now here is the supposed big revelation from the University of Vienna experiments Hutton describes: The first big idea is that the moral attitudes of human beings are thoroughly emotional in nature. Of Read More ›

Beautiful autumn tree with mushrooms and moss in forest

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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
April 13, 2022

Categorized
Natural Intelligence

Tagged
Fungi (communications)}

Not Just Plants — Even Fungi Like Mushrooms — Talk To Each Other?

_{They are NOT judging us but they do have complex communications systems interacting with their environment} _{Denyse O'Leary

April 13, 2022

4

Natural Intelligence}

The patterns that fungi like mushrooms use to communicate are said to be “strikingly similar” to those of human speech. But how?: Fungi send electrical signals to one another through hyphae—long, filamentous tendrils that the organisms use to grow and explore. The Guardian reports that previous research shows that the number of electrical impulses traveling through hyphae, sometimes likened to neurons, increases when fungi encounter new sources of food, and that this suggests it’s possible that fungi use this “language” to let each other know about new food sources or injury. Natalia Mesa, “Can Mushrooms “Talk” to Each Other?” at The Scientist (April 6, 2022) The paper is open access. That would make fungi, one of the kingdoms of life, Read More ›

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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
April 9, 2022

Categorized
Biology, Natural Intelligence

Tagged
Associative learning (in plants), Habituation (in plants), Heliotropism, Memory (in plants), Mimosa pudica, Peter Rogers, Plants (communication), Plants (consciousness issue), Plants (memory), Venus Flytrap, Vernalization}

How Plants Talk When We’re Not Around

_{Some aspects of plant behavior can be studied in the same terms as animal or human behavior} _{Denyse O'Leary

April 9, 2022

6

Biology, Natural Intelligence}

One genuine surprise in recent decades has been the discovery that plants have nervous systems like animals and use some of the same compounds in communications — for example, TMAO to relieve stress and glutamate to speed transmission. Biologist Peter Rogers pointed out recently that the similarities may shed a bit of light on issues around anaesthesia. Surprisingly, it is possible to anesthetize a plant. The shameplant (Mimosa pudica) and the Venus flytrap demonstrated that: Thirty years after anesthesia debuted in the operating room, Claude Bernard, a French physiologist, demonstrated that the shameplant (Mimosa pudica), which bashfully folds into itself when touched, was unresponsive to touch after exposure to ether, a commonly used anesthetic. The plant also folds into itself Read More ›

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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
April 5, 2022

Categorized
Ethics, Natural Intelligence

Tagged
David P. Barash, David P. Barash (on worms and pain), Pain in animals, Richard Dawkins (on animal suffering), Sentience (in invertebrates), Suffering (in animals), Worms (and pain)}

Evolutionary Psychologist Argues That Worms Feel Pain. But How?

_{Wait. Barash’s hypothesis overlooks the fact that suffering is more than an alarm system. An alarm could be going off in an empty building} _{Denyse O'Leary

April 5, 2022

8

Ethics, Natural Intelligence}

A web site for fans of earthworms tackled the question recently: Yes, it is now accepted that worms feel pain – and that includes when they are cut in half. They do not anticipate pain or feel pain as an emotional response, however. They simply move in response to pain as a reflex response. They may curl up or move away, for example, from painful or negative stimuli. Aimen Mirza, “Do worms feel pain? (Can Earthworms Sense Painful Stimuli?)” at WORMMY (October 12, 2021) Possibly in line with the growing support for panpsychism in science, University of Washington evolutionary psychology professor David P. Barash, asks us to consider that worms do indeed feel pain in a deeper sense than an Read More ›

Two stingrays are swimming on the blue sea near the underwater rocks and white sand.

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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
April 1, 2022

Categorized
Mathematics, Natural Intelligence

Tagged
Abstraction (and counting), Fish (and math), Rafael Núñez}

Did Researchers Teach Fish To “Do Math”?

_{Some test fish learned how to how to get food pellets but the difficulty, as so often, lies with interpretation} _{Denyse O'Leary

April 1, 2022

4

Mathematics, Natural Intelligence}

University of Bonn researchers think that they may have taught fish to count. They tested the fact that many life forms can note the difference in small quantities between “one more” and “one less,” at least up to five items. Not much work had been done on fish in this area so they decided to test eight freshwater stingrays and eight cichlids: All of the fish were taught to recognize blue as corresponding to “more” and yellow to “less.” The fish or stingrays entered an experimental arena where they saw a test stimulus: a card showing a set of geometric shapes (square, circle, triangle) in either yellow or blue. In a separate compartment of the tank, the fish were then Read More ›

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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
March 25, 2022

Categorized
Ethics, Natural Intelligence

Tagged
Crabs (emotion), Cruelty (and invertebrates), Decapods (emotion), How To Study Animal Minds (book), Infants (pain), Kristin Andrews}

Researchers Ask—Serious Question — Do Crabs Have Emotions?

_{Recent research has created some unexpected ethical problems for the seafood industry} _{Denyse O'Leary

March 25, 2022

4

Ethics, Natural Intelligence}

At one time, the question of whether crabs or squid had emotions would seem ridiculous. Dogs and cats have emotions but squid and crabs don’t. Right? But in recent decades, it has become evident that there is no straightforward evolutionary path to “smartness.” What about the ability to experience pain or emotion as a dog or cat would? “A London School of Economics (LSE) report commissioned by the U.K. government found there is strong enough evidence to conclude that decapod crustaceans and cephalopod molluscs are sentient,” says York University Professor and philosopher Kristin Andrews, the York Research Chair in Animal Minds, who is working with the LSE team. Andrews co-wrote an article published today in the journal Science, “The question Read More ›

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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
March 24, 2022

Categorized
Natural Intelligence

Tagged
Animal intelligence (factors), Birds (intelligence vs. reptiles), Reptiles (intelligence vs. birds)}

Are Birds Really Smarter Than Reptiles?

_{Scientists clash over how to measure animal intelligence: brain volume, brain organization, numbers of neurons…?} _{Denyse O'Leary

March 24, 2022

6

Natural Intelligence}

It used to be: Dog vs. cat, Who’s smarter? Now it’s Bird vs. reptile: Who’s smarter? Experts on the fascinating world of animal intelligence are locked in a debate over whether number of neurons or brain volume indicates intelligence (cognitive capacity): In previous work, [Pavel] Němec and colleagues showed that birds have high neuronal densities. “They basically compensate, with these densely packed neurons, [for] the fact that they have relatively small brains in absolute terms, but they have just as many neurons as mammals,” he says. But they didn’t know whether that was true of reptiles as well. In the new study, the researchers found that reptiles have very low neuronal densities, with an average neuron number 20 times lower Read More ›

Extreme magnification - Jumping spider portrait, front view

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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
March 11, 2022

Categorized
Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience

Tagged
Betsy Mason, Brain size (impact), Bridge spiders, Christa Lesté-Lasserre, Dan Robitzski, Jumping spiders, Portia (jumping spider), Spiders (hunting in groups), Spiders (strategies)}

Spiders Are Smart; Be Glad They Are Small

_{Recent research has shed light on the intriguing strategies that spiders use to deceive other spiders — and prey in general} _{Denyse O'Leary

March 11, 2022

6

Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience}

Spiders, like octopuses, have eight legs. But they share something else as well — like octopuses, once we got around to studying them, they turned out to be much smarter than expected. What makes spiders even more unusual is that they are smart with very small brains: “There is this general idea that probably spiders are too small, that you need some kind of a critical mass of brain tissue to be able to perform complex behaviors,” says arachnologist and evolutionary biologist Dimitar Dimitrov of the University Museum of Bergen in Norway. “But I think spiders are one case where this general idea is challenged. Some small things are actually capable of doing very complex stuff.” Behaviors that can be Read More ›

Concept of accusation guilty person girl.

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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
March 8, 2022

Categorized
Psychology, Social Media

Tagged
Andrew Mahon, Cancel Culture (and science), Cancel Culture (its roots), Contagion (and Cancel Culture), COVID-19 (and Cancel Culture), Emma Camp, Frank Herbert, Groupthink (and Cancel Culture), Julie Overbaugh, Justin Trudeau (and Cancel Culture), Michael Egnor (on René Girard), mob psychology, Obscurity (and Cancel Culture), René Girard, Scapegoat (in Cancel Culture)}

Why Is Cancel Culture Such a Big Part of Our Lives Today?

_{To understand the Twitter mob’s destruction of lives and careers, it’s essential to address the immense power of groupthink} _{Denyse O'Leary

March 8, 2022

7

Psychology, Social Media}

Just in time for International Women’s Day, Emma Camp, a female student at the University of Virginia, reports experiencing a wave of hostility when she suggested that non-Indian women could legitimately criticize the practice of suttee, by which a woman burns to death on her husband’s funeral pyre, voluntarily or otherwise. The reaction on Twitter suggests that Cancel Culture is its lifeblood. Meanwhile, virologist Julie Overbaugh, a National Academy of Sciences member who has made many contributions to the study of viruses, has been forced out of her teaching and research leadership positions because she had worn a Michael Jackson costume to a Halloween “King of Pop” party in 2009. Curiously, although one of her cited offences in connection with Read More ›

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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
February 28, 2022

Categorized
Arts & Culture, Philosophy, Religion

Tagged
Apophatic theology, Art (as religion substitute), Darwinism (and ethics), Dover Beach (poem), E. O. Wilson, Ed Simon, existentialism(as religion substitute), Friedrich Nietzsche (influence), God Beat (book), God Is Dead concept, God-is-dead theology, Matthew Arnold, Michael Egnor (on faith and reason), New Religion Journalism, Theodicy (Ed Simon's view), Thomas Henry Huxley}

Religion Journalism After God Is Declared Dead

_{Writer and editor Ed Simon examines and makes a case for the New Religion Journalism, offering us help with praying to a dead god} _{Denyse O'Leary

February 28, 2022

10

Arts & Culture, Philosophy, Religion}

Ed Simon is one of the editors of a recent anthology, The God Beat: What Journalism Says about Faith and Why It Matters (2021). According to the publisher, Broadleaf Books (an imprint of 1517 Media, formerly Augsburg Fortress), the book highlights “personal, subjective, voice-driven New Religion Journalism” by young writers “characterized by their brash, innovative, daring, and stylistically sophisticated writing and an unprecedented willingness to detail their own interaction with faith (or their lack thereof).” Simon offers his own thoughts on religion, sympathetic to that perspective, in a recent article at Aeon: He starts with reflections on the view that mid-nineteenth-century British poet Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) expressed in his poem “Dover Beach,” that religious faith was receding in his world: Read More ›

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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
February 23, 2022

Categorized
Philosophy of Mind

Tagged
After (book), Bruce Greyson, Near-death experiences (Greyson's perspective)}

Agnostic Psychiatrist Says Near-Death Experiences Are Real

_{They change lives but he is unsure what they mean} _{Denyse O'Leary

February 23, 2022

8

Philosophy of Mind}

Psychiatrist Bruce Greyson, emeritus at the University of Virginia, tells us that he first started thinking about near-death experiences many decades ago when a young woman, rescued from suicide, asserted that she had seen a spaghetti stain on his tie during an out-of-body experience. She could not have known that he had gone to considerable pains to conceal the embarrassing mark from colleagues. Nothing in his background had prepared him, as a young psychiatrist, for taking seriously the possibility that the mind could be detached from the brain. He grew up with a chemist father who had a great love for science but no metaphysical convictions. But he just could not forget the spaghetti stain episode and that background prompted Read More ›

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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
February 18, 2022

Categorized
Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience

Tagged
Animal Algorithms (book), Brain (insect brain), Gnat ogre, Natural algorithms (insect brains)}

When a Tiny Brain Is Actually an Advantage

_{Small size — which includes having a small brain — hones the gnat ogre’s remarkable neurological abilities} _{Denyse O'Leary

February 18, 2022

5

Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience}

The University of Minnesota, pointing to a just-published research paper, asks us to contemplate a remarkable piece of flight engineering on the part of a rather frightening fly: For those of us who occasionally trip over a curb or bump into a door frame, it’s hard to imagine an organism with a brain smaller than the period at the end of this sentence deftly maneuvering around obstacles while chasing fast-moving prey on the wing… The research, carried out by Paloma Gonzalez-Bellido, Mary Sumner, and Trevor Wardill of the University of Minnesota’s College of Biological Sciences, and Sam Fabian of the Imperial College London Department of Bioengineering, focuses on the aerial feats of a miniature robber fly known as a gnat Read More ›

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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
February 15, 2022

Categorized
Natural Intelligence

Tagged
African grey parrots (sharing tokens), Andreas Nieder, Animals (concept of zero), birds (intelligence), cockatoos (intelligence), crows (concept of zero), Jordana Cepelewicz, Zero (as concept)}

The Remarkable Things We’re Learning About Bird Intelligence

_{These findings are only among birds that have actually been studied; most birds have not been studied for intelligence} _{Denyse O'Leary

February 15, 2022

5

Natural Intelligence}

At one time, there was an assumption — not really a theory — that vertebrates would be more intelligent than invertebrates and mammals would be more intelligent than birds. Well along came the octopus, which turns out to be as intelligent as a typical mammal. And the New Zealand crow, which can be as smart as an ape. These life forms have significantly different brains from each other so intelligence does not appear to reside in a specific organization of the brain. While researchers puzzle that out, let’s look at some recent findings as to what the bird (avian) brain can do. We are looking at behaviors that probably require some individual intelligence, not just an inherited program: ● Cockatoos Read More ›

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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
February 14, 2022

Categorized
Religion, Science

Tagged
COVID-19 (and acceptance of nonsense), Einstein effect, Guru effect, New Age Bullshit Generator, Nonsense (computer-generated), Research (on science nonsense)}

We Trust Nonsense From Lab Coats More Than From Gurus

_{This shocking study is relevant to how we decide what to believe from science sources about COVID-19} _{Denyse O'Leary

February 14, 2022

6

Religion, Science}

An international team of researchers staged a revealing experiment on who we believe when they are talking nonsense. The test of 10,195 participants from 24 countries asked questions about the credibility of the statements and about their personal degree of religiosity. How could the researchers be sure that the statements were nonsense? They were produced by the New Age Bullshit Generator, an algorithm that generates impressive sounding elements of sentences that make rough grammatical sense even if they make no other sense. Two statements were selected: The 10,195 participants in the experiment were presented with two meaningless but profound-sounding statements: “We are called to explore the cosmos itself as an interface between faith and empathy. We must learn how to Read More ›

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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
February 3, 2022

Categorized
Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience

Tagged
Andrew Barron, Anthropomorphism (and bees), Bees (consciousness), Brain stem (and mind), Catherine WIlson, Colin Klein, Hive mind (and intelligence), Insects (consciousness), Lars Chittka, Martin Lindauer, Midbrain (and consciousness), Neocortex (and consciousness)}

Can Insects Be Conscious? Let’s Look At Bees First

_{Consciousness does not seem to reside in the neocortex so complex behavior in bees has raised the question for biologists and philosophers alike} _{Denyse O'Leary

February 3, 2022

7

Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience}

Honeybee scientist Andrew Barron and philosopher Colin Klein, both then at Macquarie University in Australia, argue that bees have some form of consciousness. Let’s look at what they have to say: According to an article in Smithsonian Magazine, Barron broached the question of bee consciousness with Klein, who was highly skeptical at first. But Barron pointed out that at least one key theory holds that …the core of human consciousness is not our impressive neocortex, but our much more primitive midbrain. This simple structure synthesizes sensory data into a unified, egocentric point of view that lets us navigate our world. Insects, Barron and Klein now argue, have midbrain-like structures, including a “central complex,” that seem to allow bugs to similarly Read More ›

Newspapers and Laptop. Different Concepts for News - Network or Traditional Tabloid Journals. Data Sources - Electronic Screen of Computer or Paper Pages of Magazines, Internet or Papers

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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
February 2, 2022

Categorized
Media, Social Media

Tagged
Erasmus Klaus Nielsen, Felix Salmon, Knight Foundation (on trust in media), Media (trust in media), Poynter (on trust in media), Reuters Institute (on trust in media), Social media (as personal news channels)}

The Cultural Changes That Destroyed Trust in Media

_{The critical question isn’t whether traditional media are trusted but whether their model can even survive the tsunami of the internet} _{Denyse O'Leary

February 2, 2022

6

Media, Social Media}

Felix Salmon, chief financial correspondent at Axios, shares the gloomy news: For the first time ever, fewer than half of all Americans have trust in traditional media, according to data from Edelman’s annual trust barometer shared exclusively with Axios. Trust in social media has hit an all-time low of 27%. Felix Salmon, “Media trust hits new low” at Axios (January 1, 2021) But the trust issue is highly polarized: When Edelman re-polled Americans after the election, the figures had deteriorated even further, with 57% of Democrats trusting the media and only 18% of Republicans. Felix Salmon, “Media trust hits new low” at Axios (January 1, 2021) But even if media are willing to just write off Republicans, it can’t be Read More ›

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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
February 2, 2022

Categorized
Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience

Tagged
Ants (parasitic ants), Deborah M. Gordon, Dragonflies (specialized neurons), Flies (specialized neuron systems), Insects (hive memory), Insects (neurons and adaptation)}

How Do Insects Use Their Very Small Brains To Think Clearly?

_{How do they engage in complex behaviour with only 100.000 to a million neurons?} _{Denyse O'Leary

February 2, 2022

6

Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience}

If we had a skeleton that was outside, not inside, our body — and six legs — we might find it easier to understand how insects think. But only a bit easier. Despite complex behavior, insects are working with 100,000 to maybe a million neurons, compared to our, maybe, 86 billion — but insects make the most of what they have. Consider, for example, the dragonfly. How does it manage to deal with all the issues that a fighter pilot must address, while catching prey? One adaptation is specialized neurons: Dragonflies (order Odonata) and hoverflies (order Diptera) are among insect flyers equipped with special neurons for targeting with optic flow. “The ability of insects to successfully pursue targets in clutter Read More ›