Mind Matters News and Analysis on Natural and Artificial Intelligence

CategoryNeuroscience

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

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
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 ›
grace-madeline-493254-unsplash
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
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
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 ›