Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

Denyse O'Leary

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A post-apocalyptic cityscape devoid of life, with crumbling buildings, overgrown vegetation, and the remnants of civilization scattered throughout the desolate landscape, Generative AI

At a Science Journal: Humanity Is Just So Doomed

Opinions differ as to the details of what will wipe us all out — or maybe not
In one version, the coming human eclipse originated in a sin against Darwinism: destroying the competition. Read More ›
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baby chimpanzee ape at the zoo.

Study: Human brains differ more from chimps’ than once thought

Discarding decades of pop science, science writer Tom Howarth doubts that there is a single defining switch or pivotal evolutionary event that makes us human. Read More ›
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Digital chatbots on smartphones access data and information in online networks. Robot Applications and Global Connectivity AI Artificial Intelligence innovation and technology

Are chatbots starting to write literature?

Of course, the critical question is, how much does the audience actually want originality and how much does it want the old familiar storyline? Read More ›
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Dark sphere rests on volcanic rocks, Iceland landscape

Why Did Our Very Ancient Ancestors Collect Ball-Shaped Stones?

Over a million years ago, it seems that some of our ancestors hiked through valleys in East Africa, searching for volcanic spheres
Darwinian evolution theory allows any state of affairs that dates to eons ago to be called “evolution” even when, as in this case, the facts imply the opposite. Read More ›
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Cancel word on a red enter key of the black pc keyboard. Concepts of cancel culture, ostracism and call-out culture social media and in the Internet. Computer enter key with message.

How Our Expert Classes Have Torpedoed Public Trust

Long time free speech advocate Greg Lukianoff and Angel Eduardo dissect the Cancel Culture that makes distrust a quite reasonable choice
All that said, it’s not villains who keep Cancel Culture going. It’s people for whom being Nice is far more important than telling the truth. Read More ›
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Brain psychology mind soul and hope concept art, 3d illustration, surreal artwork, imagination painting, conceptual idea

Can Christianity Just Abandon the Idea of the Soul?

Theologian Nancey Murphy thinks that the Christian tradition can do without the idea of a soul, by relying only on faith in a bodily resurrection
The view Murphy outlines at Closer to Truth has more in common with modern materialism than with a traditional Christian understanding of the human soul. Read More ›
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Microscopic Long Exposure: Caenorhabditis Elegans Movement Trails

If the Tiniest Brain Is Far From Simple, How Did It Originate?

Eric Cassell’s account of the brain of the nematode worm C. elegans sparks a number of interesting questions
Researchers have used the usually avoided term "directed evolution" — which may suggest design — to account for the worm's tiny, complex brain. Read More ›
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View on Olduvai gorge in Tanzania

Abstract Reasoning in Human Ancestors: Earlier Than Thought?

Researchers say, bone tools were being mass produced 1.5 million years ago in the in Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania
The question naturally arises, was the normally developed human mind ever incapable of abstract thought? That’s a challenge to accepted evolution theories. Read More ›
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Giant surveillance camera spies a man. No secrets, no privacy concept. 3D rendering

New Angel Studios documentary: Live Not by Lies

The four-part series discusses the way that the totalitarianism that Soviet dissidents warned about is emerging in Western society today. Read More ›
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Hacker in prison cell. Selective focus. AI generated, human enhanced

Should the Iconic Stanford Prison Experiment Study Be Retracted?

Within six months of the death of the famous sociologist who devised it, long-simmering questions have risen to the surface
Beware of wildly popular sociology that tells us that our public policy preferences are somehow embedded in human nature. Life was never as simple as that. Read More ›
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Woman putting red sign with words

NYT on COVID: Not “Badly Misled.” One of the Worst Misleaders!

The Times writer smears legitimate doubt by associating it with unnamed questionable persons and causes — that works if people don’t know the story
Legacy media are giving way to broader-based social media. But trust in science is also at a low ebb. And what’s the replacement for science? Read More ›
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Twin embryos inside female uterus, 3D illustration

Researchers Ask: When Are Children Conscious Before Birth?

Human consciousness in general is acknowledged to be a Hard Problem and prenatal consciousness is a subset of that
If examples of terminal and paradoxical lucidity in old age are any guide, we should not conclude that children must lack consciousness before a given stage. Read More ›
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orange long sleeve shirt on black textile

NR editors decry the residential schools “mass graves” claims

They are right to call the whole episode disgraceful. But they should not assume that private truth hysteria can strike only in Canada. Read More ›
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Ability.

Consciousness: Reductionism’s Final Hill — the One To Die On?

The reductionist has no more information than anyone else about the origin of human consciousness and isn’t making any better sense of the evidence we do have
Is science about following the evidence or about confirming a materialist ideology about science? This is the big neuroscience question of our century. Read More ›
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Poppy field at sunset

When end-of-life lucidity struggles with delirium…

Curiously, Erard's own grandmother’s last contact with him did not seem so much to be delirium as simply a different cultural understanding from his. Read More ›
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Antique Wooden TV Stand with Decorative Frame Cut-Out for Historical Display

Stop Moaning About the ‘Mainstream Media’. You Are the Media Now

Social media have become much more important, relative to traditional news media and we are only beginning to grasp the profound implications
People can now build in their own spare rooms an audience that used to require printing presses or big TV studios. No surprise, governments want control. Read More ›
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Front view portrait of cute African-American girl lying on bed with big pet dog and smiling, copy space

Clinical Psychologist Defends Human Exceptionalism

Gregg Henriques is responding to an evolutionary biologist who sees recognition of human uniqueness as “speciesism,” akin to racism and sexism
From a secular humanist perspective, he says roughly what Aristotle (384– 322 BC) and Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) would say about our unique human nature. Read More ›