Denyse O'Leary

Bangkok, Thailand 25 AUG 2020. Men hand using digital tablet for search information on Google. Wireless Smartphone technology with intelligence search engine.

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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
December 8, 2020

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, Work

Tagged
Conscious computers, Culture, Emily M. Bender, fake news, Google, Google whistleblowers, Jeff Dean, Karen Hao, large language models, Timnit Gebru, Whistleblowers}

Google’s Leading AI Ethics Researcher Fired, Amid Controversy

_{Her research team targeted Google’s “cash cow”: advertising} _{Denyse O'Leary

December 8, 2020

6

Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, Work}

Timnit Gebru, a leading AI ethics researcher, was fired from Google early this month under circumstances that have raised suspicions across the industry: On December 2, the AI research community was shocked to learn that Timnit Gebru had been fired from her post at Google. Gebru, one of the leading voices in responsible AI research, is known among other things for coauthoring groundbreaking work that revealed the discriminatory nature of facial recognition, cofounding the Black in AI affinity group, and relentlessly advocating for diversity in the tech industry. But on Wednesday evening, she announced on Twitter that she had been terminated from her position as Google’s ethical AI co-lead. “Apparently my manager’s manager sent an email [to] my direct reports Read More ›

Cat looking to little gerbil mouse on the table. Concept of prey, food, pest.

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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
November 20, 2020

Categorized
Information Theory, Neuroscience, Science

Tagged
Agency, Animals, Erwin Schrödinger, hard problem of consciousness, Information, mind, Philip Ball, Plants, Purpose, Susan Still}

Can We Find Purpose in a Universe With No Underlying Purpose?

_{That’s the ambitious goal of a prominent science writer} _{Denyse O'Leary

November 20, 2020

8

Information Theory, Neuroscience, Science}

British science writer Philip Ball offers us a guide to a very interesting project: an attempt to “naturalize” the idea of agency, that is, make the desire to do things—the mouse’s desire to escape the cat— explainable from a fully materialist perspective. That’s much harder than it seems. Rocks don’t desire anything. So we can’t just start from the bottom. It’s also not enough to say that the mouse wants to avoid getting killed. That’s true but it doesn’t really explain anything. For example, a person looks both ways before crossing the street to avoid getting run over. But, by itself, that doesn’t explain why she tries to avoid getting run over. One must factor in her memory, background knowledge, Read More ›

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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 ›

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

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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 ›

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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
October 25, 2020

Categorized
Philosophy of Mind, Science

Tagged
Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy (book), Igor Grossman, Jesus, Naturalism, Odin, Toronto Wisdom Task Force, Wisdom, Wisdom and Culture Lab}

Why Wisdom Is Not and Cannot Be a “Science”

_{Some have tried to make the pursuit of wisdom a “scientific” endeavour. That is not going well.} _{Denyse O'Leary

October 25, 2020

8

Philosophy of Mind, Science}

A curiosity of our age is the effort to “naturalize” traditional values, to treat them as an outcome of evolution. Evolution we are told, took us in a slightly different direction from that of the apes but it did not put us in contact with a wisdom beyond this world. There is no such thing. That conflicts with traditional accounts of wisdom. Wisdom has been seen as different from “knowledge,” “intelligence” or “street smarts.” They are all very useful, of course. But wisdom is a view of the world from a great distance, which enables clarity about the big issues. For example, from Boethius, about 1500 years ago: Indeed, the condition of human nature is just this; man towers above Read More ›

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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
October 4, 2020

Categorized
Philosophy of Mind

Tagged
Anxiety, Depression (mental health), Edward H. Hagen, Evolutionary anthropology, Grief, Kristen Syme}

Why Does “Evolution Theory” Trivialize Everything It Touches?

_{A pair of evolutionary anthropologists try their hand at dealing with existential grief, anxiety, and depression} _{Denyse O'Leary

October 4, 2020

8

Philosophy of Mind}

A couple of evolutionary anthropologists tried their hand recently at illuminating the depths of human anxiety. They started by getting one thing clear right away: Researchers in our field are trained to think about humans in the same way that we think about chimpanzees, macaques and any other animal on the planet. We recognise that humans, like all other species, evolved in environments that posed many challenges, such as predation, starvation and disease. As such, human psychology is well-adapted to meet these challenges. Kristen Syme and Edward H. Hagen, “Most anguish isn’t an illness but an evolved response to adversity” at Psyche (September 29, 2020) So humans are just like other animals. Syme and Hagen oppose treating “the common mental Read More ›

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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
September 30, 2020

Categorized
Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience

Tagged
Deutsches Primatenzentrum (DPZ), Evolution, Great apes, intelligence, Lemur, Mouse lemur, Primate Cognition Test Battery (PCTB), Primates}

Lemurs with Brains 1/200 the Size of Chimps’ Pass Same IQ Test

_{This new finding about mouse lemurs also makes human exceptionalism more exceptional} _{Denyse O'Leary

September 30, 2020

4

Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience}

Researchers were surprise to discover recently that the mouse lemur, a tiny primate whose brain is 1/200th the size of a chimpanzee’s brain, did as well as great apes on a primate intelligence test. Read More ›

Pair of ravens in courtship. Corvus corax

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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
September 29, 2020

Categorized
Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind

Tagged
Birds, Chimpanzees, Crows, Evolution, Human exceptionalism, intelligence, Language, Mirror test, Mythology, Neocortex, Primates, Ravens, Suzana Herculano-Houzel}

Why Does Science Embrace the “Talking Animals” Myth?

_{Many birds are quite smart but why do some researchers imply that they think like people?} _{Denyse O'Leary

September 29, 2020

8

Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind}

In recent years, studies have confirmed a widespread cultural intuition that some birds, particularly corvids like crows and ravens, are “smart.” They show considerable problem-solving skills. Thus, they loom large in mythology as messengers and tricksters. For example, the Norse king of the gods (pictured) had two ravens as advisors. Oddly enough, science today retains the mythology and makes a curious use of it: New discoveries about the specifics of corvid brain organization and intelligence are framed as demonstrating that humans do not really have as exceptional thinking ability as we suppose: Research unveiled on Thursday in Science finds that crows know what they know and can ponder the content of their own minds, a manifestation of higher intelligence and Read More ›

Neanderthal or Homo Sapiens Family Cooking Animal Meat over Bonfire and then Eating it. Tribe of Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherers Wearing Animal Skins Eating in a Dark Scary Cave at Night

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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
September 1, 2020

Categorized
Creativity, Philosophy of Mind

Tagged
Consciousness Explained (book), Creativity, Daniel Dennett, Daniel Dor, Hypothetical thinking, Imagination, Keith Frankish, Language, The Instruction of Imagination (book2015)}

Did the Human Mind Originate in Telling Ourselves Stories?

_{A philosopher and writer tries to account for the jump from animal to human by wholly natural means} _{Denyse O'Leary

September 1, 2020

8

Creativity, Philosophy of Mind}

Philosopher Keith Frankish melds linguist Daniel Dor’s ideas with philosopher Daniel Dennett’s to come up with a revealingly circular theory. Read More ›

Antibiotic resistant bacteria inside a biofilm, 3D illustration. Realistic scientific background

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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
August 26, 2020

Categorized
Medicine and Health, Natural Intelligence

Tagged
Bacteria, intelligence, Necrosignals, Thomas Nagel}

Do Bacteria Warn Others While Dying from Antibiotics?

_{Scientists are learning more about the complex ways bacteria overcome efforts to control them} _{Denyse O'Leary

August 26, 2020

3

Medicine and Health, Natural Intelligence}

That’s what we learn from a new open-access paper in Nature titled “Dead cells release a ‘necrosignal’ that activates antibiotic survival pathways in bacterial swarms.” It’s sometimes described as “screams,” but it’s actually a release of chemicals, which amounts to the same thing: a warning to prepare for an onslaught of antibiotics. The scientists also noted another curious factor: The cascade of genes turned on by necrosignals not only protected the surviving swarm from antibiotics, but promoted future resistance to the compounds that killed their comrades. What’s more, the scientists realized that subpopulations of swarm bacteria were genetically variable; some were more susceptible to the antibiotics than others. Swarms of bacteria may collectively cultivate different subpopulations as an evolutionary survival Read More ›

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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
August 21, 2020

Categorized
Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience, Religion

Tagged
Bastet, Burials, Carlos Driscoll, Cats, Egypt (ancient), Lauren Finka, Morten Kringelbach, Mummies, Salima Ikran, Superstition}

Some Mysteries About Cats … Solved!

_{Pet dogs outnumber cats but they’ll never excel at creating the aura of mystery at which the cat effortlessly succeeds} _{Denyse O'Leary

August 21, 2020

7

Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience, Religion}

Following up on the ways cats are intelligent, it might be fun to look at how humans got involved with them. It turns out that there are reasons why we have always found cats mysterious, compared to dogs. Why are people so fond of cats? There are lots of reasons but here’s an interesting find: Domestic cats’ meows for attention are said to be unique to their relationship with humans. Oxford neuroscientist Morten Kringelbach has found a way to map human responses via magnetoencephalograph (MEG) studies that measure electrical activity in our brains in real time. He found that the cry of a baby triggered a response in the orbitofrontal cortex before study subjects had identified the sound consciously. Adult Read More ›

Cat and robotic vacuum cleaner in the room. Fluffy british shorthair cat is playing with a robotic vacuum.

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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
August 18, 2020

Categorized
Natural Intelligence, Science

Tagged
Acro-Cats, Berit Brogaard, Cats, Dogs, intelligence, Leslie Darling}

In What Ways Are Cats Intelligent?

_{Cats have nearly twice as many neurons as dogs and a bigger and more complex cerebral cortex} _{Denyse O'Leary

August 18, 2020

7

Natural Intelligence, Science}

It’s hard to come up with an interspecies IQ test. We live in a world where dogs are smarter than wolves in some ways but wolves are smarter than dogs in others. So much depends on what we want to measure. So let’s look at cats in relation to dogs because dogs have been studied so much more. Dogs are often seen as smarter than cats because they can do more jobs for humans. But humans bred dogs for millennia to do those very jobs. Cats have also made themselves useful to humans by killing pest rodents. But we best help the cat kill rodents just by getting out of his way. Thus, to assess cat intelligence vs. dog intelligence, Read More ›

Jumping spider close up. Macro photography. Portrait of spider

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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
August 13, 2020

Categorized
Natural Intelligence

Tagged
Abstraction, Cognition, intelligence, Jonathan Pruitt, Jumping spiders, Orb weaving spiders, Spiders}

In What Ways Are Spiders Intelligent?

_{The ability to perform simple cognitive functions does not appear to depend on the vertebrate brain as such} _{Denyse O'Leary

August 13, 2020

7

Natural Intelligence}

This year saw a huge uproar in science media over claims that prominent researcher of spider behavior Jonathan Pruitt, a behavioral ecologist currently at McMaster University in Canada, had fabricated evidence of complex, seemingly intelligent behavior in spiders. After many colleagues recently raised concerns in blogs and tweets that behavioral ecologist Jonathan Pruitt had fabricated the data behind a slew of provocative results regarding animal personalities and social spiders, he denied the charges, saying any problems were inadvertent mistakes. Elizabeth Pennisi, “Embattled spider biologist seeks to delay additional retractions of problematic papers” at Science (March 12, 2020) Some of Pruitt’s data management mistakes seem rather curious: More than 20 scientists — co-authors, peers and other interested observers in the field Read More ›

Antibiotic resistant bacteria inside a biofilm, 3D illustration. Biofilm is a community of bacteria where they aquire antibiotic resistance and communicate with each other by quorum sensing molecules

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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
August 6, 2020

Categorized
Natural Intelligence

Tagged
___longform, Bacillus subtilis, Bacteria, Bacteria as living computers, Biofilms, E. coli, Gürol Süel, John Rennie, Mazes}

In What Ways Are Bacteria Intelligent?

_{As antibiotic resistance grows, researchers are discovering that these microbes are not just single, simple cells} _{Denyse O'Leary

August 6, 2020

9

Natural Intelligence}

Recently, Princeton University physicist Robert Austin challenged his graduate student Trung Phan to design a maze that he (Austin) couldn’t solve: Austin, Phan discovered, tended to retrace his steps when he encountered a dead end. So Tran decided on a maze without dead ends. The true purpose of the experiment, as Sophia Chen recounts at Wired, was to design a maze that bacteria can solve with remarkable skill based on their colony organization which, if you like, stands in for a brain: Curiously, bacteria—single-celled organisms that are among the simplest living things—are well known for working together, creating problem-solving units that are more than the sum of their parts. For example, to protect themselves from your immune system, the bacteria Read More ›

Dog playing the shell game with her human. Concept of training pets, domestic dogs being smart and educated

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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
August 5, 2020

Categorized
Natural Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind

Tagged
___longform, Dog breeds, Dog intelligence, Dogs, Genetics, George Dvorsky, Gestures, intelligence, Language, Magnetic field sensing, Numeracy, Problem-solving, Self-awareness, Sense of smell, Wolves}

In What Ways Are Dogs Intelligent?

_{There is no human counterpart to some types of dog intelligence} _{Denyse O'Leary

August 5, 2020

8

Natural Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind}

At Gizmodo recently, George Dvorsky adopted the useful, though somewhat unusual, strategy of determining dog intelligence by focusing on what dogs can’t do. He starts with the premise, as put by University of Exeter psychology professor (and dog expert) Stephen Lea, who says that domestication “has radically altered the intelligence of dogs.” Not so much raised or lowered it as changed its nature from the type of intelligence we would expect from a wolf: “Dogs are very good at what they’re bred to do — they’re excellent at doing those things, and in some cases even better than other species we think are intelligent, such as chimps and bonobos,” Zachary Silver, a PhD student from the Comparative Cognitive Lab at Read More ›

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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
July 25, 2020

Categorized
Natural Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind

Tagged
___longform, Barbara King, Bonobos, Frans de Waal, Great Ape Trust, Jared Taglialatela, Kanzi, Lindsay Stern, Michael Egnor, Sue Savage-Rumbaugh}

But, in the End, Did the Chimpanzee Really Talk?

_{A recent article in the Smithsonian Magazine sheds light on the motivations behind the need to see bonobos as something like an oppressed people, rather than apes in need of protection} _{Denyse O'Leary

July 25, 2020

10

Natural Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind}

Recently, Michael Egnor commented on radical primatologist Sue Savage-Rumbaugh’s effort to level the playing field between humans and bonobos by including the latter as authors of a research paper on animal welfare: “Non-human animals don’t have abstract knowledge-making and practices that would allow them to be meaningfully consulted. It is reality, not anthropocentric bias, that has left animals out of this decision-making process.” There is a larger and very interesting story around that paper, recently relayed at Smithsonian Magazine by Lindsay Stern (right), a PhD candidate in comparative literature at Yale and author of a novel, The Study of Animal Languages. Her article tells us a good deal about the motivations of those who, essentially, see bonobos not as apes Read More ›

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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
July 22, 2020

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind

Tagged
Consciousness, emotions, intelligence, Max Tegmark, media, media bias, Stephanie Singleton}

Multiverse Physicist Max Tegmark Seeks AI That Checks News Bias

_{Naive people who truthfully claim to be acting only “for good” in trying to address bias in the news via AI are kidding themselves} _{Denyse O'Leary

July 22, 2020

7

Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind}

Max Tegmark (right) is probably better known as a multiverse cosmologist than as an AI specialist. The MIT physics professor told New Scientist in 1998 that “All possible universes exist, even triangular ones.” He also informed Scientific American in 2003 that “Not just a staple of science fiction, other universes are a direct implication of cosmological observations”: Is there a copy of you reading this article? A person who is not you but who lives on a planet called Earth, with misty mountains, fertile fields and sprawling cities, in a solar system with eight other planets? The life of this person has been identical to yours in every respect. But perhaps he or she now decides to put down this Read More ›

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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
July 8, 2020

Categorized
Natural Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind

Tagged
Abstractions, Animals, Barbara J. King, Death, funerals, Grief, Hachikō}

Do Animals Truly Grieve When Other Animals Die?

_{Yes, but “death” is, in some ways, an abstraction so there are only some things they understand about it} _{Denyse O'Leary

July 8, 2020

6

Natural Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind}

Anthropologist Barbara J. King, author of How Animals Grieve (2014), has written a thought-provoking essay on the difficulties that COVID-19 has created for people coping with the death of a loved one because they are not allowed conventional grieving methods. Although it is titled “Animal Grief Shows We Aren’t Meant to Die Alone,” King’s essay turns out to be appropriately skeptical of ambitious claims about animal grief. She writes, There is a popular perception that some animals, particularly elephants and crows, participate in their own kinds of funerals. But there’s little solid evidence—at least, so far—for this kind of community ritual. Elephants may occasionally cover a dead companion’s body with leaves or branches, but the meaning and intent of this Read More ›

Sad wife holding wedding ring on coronavirus confinement

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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
June 3, 2020

Categorized
Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind, Science

Tagged
COVID-19, David Papineau, Evolutionary psychology, Gorillas, Infidelity, Martin Graff, Stone Age, Subpersonal, Subrena E. Smith}

Does COVID-19 Lead Women to Cheat?

_{The “subpersonal” approach to human psychology is popular but is it valid?} _{Denyse O'Leary

June 3, 2020

7

Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind, Science}

It's an open question whether the mind evolved at all and therefore whether evolutionary psychology is any help in understanding it.

Ten Ways COVID-19 Will Change Your Next Air Trip

_{You’ll still get there but it definitely won’t be half the fun} _{Denyse O'Leary

May 28, 2020

10

Arts & Culture, Business and Finance, Medicine and Health}

On board, the plane will be cleaner but also leaner. Expect to wear a mask and snack before you go.