Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

CategoryNeuroscience

Image result for plato
Type
post
Author
Michael Egnor
Date
October 12, 2018
Categorized
Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind
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Does brain stimulation research challenge free will?

If we can be forced to want something, is the will still free?
Michael Egnor
October 12, 2018
8
Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind
The materialist interpretation of Reilly’s work is a misunderstanding of what the research actually shows. The stimulations did not evoke complex abstract intentions and acts—the patients didn’t reflexively decide to do integral calculus or donate to Amnesty International. Read More ›
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Type
post
Author
Michael Egnor
Date
October 9, 2018
Categorized
Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience
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Does your brain construct your conscious reality? Part II

In a word, no. Your brain doesn't "think"; YOU think, using your brain
Michael Egnor
October 9, 2018
6
Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience
The brain understands nothing, imagines nothing, sees nothing. It wills nothing. We understand, we imagine, we see, and we will, using our brains. Read More ›
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Type
post
Author
Michael Egnor
Date
October 9, 2018
Categorized
Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience
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Does your brain construct your conscious reality? Part I

A reply to computational neuroscientist Anil Seth's recent TED talk
Michael Egnor
October 9, 2018
5
Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience
His talk is a breathtaking compendium of fallacies on the mind and the brain. We can learn a lot from him—by understanding the errors into which he falls and the way out of those errors. Read More ›
MRI Image Of Head Showing Brain
Type
post
Author
Michael Egnor
Date
September 26, 2018
Categorized
Machine Learning, Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind
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Do either machines—or brains—really learn?

A further response to Jeffrey Shallit: Actually, brains don’t learn either. Only minds learn.
Michael Egnor
September 26, 2018
4
Machine Learning, Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind
Learning is an ability of human beings, considered as a whole, to acquire new knowledge, not an ability of human organs considered individually. Read More ›
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Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
September 25, 2018
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience, Social Factors
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Inner peace: Is there software for that?

Tech billionaire funds neuroscience in a search for the secret of contentment
Denyse O'Leary
September 25, 2018
3
Artificial Intelligence, Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience, Social Factors
His approach to neuroscience is very different from that of the Dalai Lama, who facilitates neuroscience research to better understand contemplation as a path to inner peace. Chen’s focus is more on developing virtual reality. Read More ›
MRI Image Of Head Showing Brain
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
August 24, 2018
Categorized
Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind
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Do Big Brains Matter to Human Intelligence?

We don’t know. Brain research readily dissolves into confusion at that point
Denyse O'Leary
August 24, 2018
2
Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind

We also know very little about the human brain. Take this controversy about why the large human brain evolved...

Read More ›
Conceptual image of a large stone in the shape of the human brain
The young and conceptual image of a large stone in the shape of the human brain
Type
post
Author
Michael Egnor
Date
August 7, 2018
Categorized
Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind
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The Brain Is Not a “Meat Computer”

Dramatic recoveries from brain injury highlight the difference
Michael Egnor
August 7, 2018
6
Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind

The brain looks like a computer only if we analyze it as if it were a computer. Our analysis does not mean that it is a computer, and it does not mean that computation explains the mind or even that computational approaches to neuroscience provide genuinely meaningful insight into neurophysiology.

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MRI brain : Brain tumor at right parietal lobe
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
August 5, 2018
Categorized
Medicine and Health, Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind
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Boy loses large hunk of brain

And is “doing just fine”
Denyse O'Leary
August 5, 2018
3
Medicine and Health, Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind
When pundits talk glibly of creating artificial minds or claim that consciousness is an illusion, it might help to remember that few predicted cases like this could exist and few thought that high tech diagnostics would lead to their discovery. Read More ›
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Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
July 31, 2018
Categorized
Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind
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How to hack your unconscious mind

Assuming it exists
Denyse O'Leary
July 31, 2018
3
Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind
Those who tell us that we can learn to use our unconscious mind and those who tell us that it doesn’t exist both claim to speak for science. But this is no ordinary dispute. An ordinary dispute might be something like What killed the dinosaurs? Imagine instead a dispute between scientists who do and scientists who do not believe that dinosaurs have ever existed. Read More ›
Dr. Michael Egnor, M.D.
Type
post
Author
Michael Egnor
Date
July 17, 2018
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind
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Neurosurgeon Outlines Why Machines Can’t Think

The hallmark of human thought is meaning, and the hallmark of computation is indifference to meaning.
Michael Egnor
July 17, 2018
5
Artificial Intelligence, Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind
A cornerstone of the development of artificial intelligence is the pervasive assumption that machines can, or will, think. Watson, a question-answering computer, beats the best Jeopardy players, and anyone who plays chess has had the humiliation of being beaten by a chess engine. Does this mean that computers can think as well as (or better than) humans think? Read More ›