Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

CategoryNatural Intelligence

small-mushrooms-toadstools-stockpack-adobe-stock
small mushrooms toadstools
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post
Author
News
Date
September 1, 2021
Categorized
Environment, Ethics, Natural Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind
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Mushrooms Have Minds? Well, If You Doubt Humans Are Exceptional…

… it is a short step to thinking that mushrooms have minds. A Miami University biologist has taken that step
News
September 1, 2021
4
Environment, Ethics, Natural Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind

It’s pretty daring to claim that mushrooms have minds. But, in the light of what we have learned about plant communications, we should perhaps pause a moment to at least listen. Miami University biologist Nicholas P. Money, argues: Given the magical reputation of the fungi, claiming that they might be conscious is dangerous territory for a credentialled scientist. But in recent years, a body of remarkable experiments have shown that fungi operate as individuals, engage in decision-making, are capable of learning, and possess short-term memory. These findings highlight the spectacular sensitivity of such ‘simple’ organisms, and situate the human version of the mind within a spectrum of consciousness that might well span the entire natural world. Nicholas P. Money, “The Read More ›

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Six worlds
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post
Author
News
Date
August 28, 2021
Categorized
Natural Intelligence, Science
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New Class of “Hycean” Exoplanets May Feature Life

The new James Webb Telescope will enable much clearer resolution for the composition believed necessary for hosting life
News
August 28, 2021
4
Natural Intelligence, Science

A group of Cambridge astronomers, studying the more than 4000 confirmed exoplanets, think that hydrogen-rich planets may host life. These “Hycean” planets are more numerous than planets similar to Earth and are easier to observe, especially through the new James Webb telescope, to be launched later this year. They are thought to be completely covered by oceans and are termed “mini-Neptune water worlds”: Many of the prime Hycean candidates identified by the researchers are bigger and hotter than Earth, but still have the characteristics to host large oceans that could support microbial life similar to that found in some of Earth’s most extreme aquatic environments. These planets also allow for a far wider habitable zone, or ‘Goldilocks zone’, compared to Read More ›

sad-mixed-breed-dog-posing-in-a-cage-in-animal-shelter-stockpack-adobe-stock
sad mixed breed dog posing in a cage in animal shelter
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
August 27, 2021
Categorized
Ethics, Natural Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind
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Are Animals Capable of Committing Suicide?

Generally, experts think not. They may, of course, become profoundly depressed and engage in self-harm
Denyse O'Leary
August 27, 2021
6
Ethics, Natural Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind

At Discover Magazine, Richard Pallardy offers an anecdote: In April 1970, Ric O’Barry visited a dolphin named Kathy at the Miami Seaquarium, where she was languishing in “retirement” after three years as the title character on the television show Flipper. O’Barry, who had captured her from the wild and trained her to perform, remembers thinking that she seemed depressed. She was all alone in a concrete tank — not a good thing for a highly social animal like a dolphin. He claims the former cetacean starlet swam into his arms, sank to the bottom of the tank and refused to resurface, drowning herself. Richard Pallardy, “Do Animals Commit Suicide?” at Discover Magazine (August 10, 2021) There is no lack of Read More ›

cuttlefish-stockpack-adobe-stock
cuttlefish
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post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
August 26, 2021
Categorized
Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience
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Cuttlefish Have Good Memories, Even in Old Age

They are cephalopods and many types of cephalopod show a number of intelligent characteristics which we are only beginning to investigate
Denyse O'Leary
August 26, 2021
6
Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience

Octopuses have been called a “second genesis” of intelligence, that is, they are invertebrates with high intelligence, instead of vertebrates. But their close relatives, squid and cuttlefish (they are all cephalopods), are not far behind, according to recent research. One unusual finding is that cuttlefish have very good memories: Can you remember what you had for dinner last Tuesday? Or on this day last year? It turns out that cuttlefish can, right up to old age – the first animal we’ve found that doesn’t show signs of deterioration in memory function over time. David Nield, “The Incredible Brains of Cuttlefish Hold Memories That Never Seem to Fade” at ScienceAlert (18 August 2021) Of course, cuttlefish live only a couple of Read More ›

horseshoe-crab-and-sand-stockpack-adobe-stock
Horseshoe Crab and Sand
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post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
August 24, 2021
Categorized
Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience
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Do Brains Really Evolve? The Horseshoe Crab’s Brain Didn’t

It’s very rare to find an intact fossil brain but a rare combination of minerals preserved one from 310 million years ago
Denyse O'Leary
August 24, 2021
4
Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience

Recently, paleontologist Russell Bicknell and colleagues found a fossil horseshoe crab in the Yale Peabody Museum, originally from the Mazon Creek fossil beds near Chicago. That, in itself wasn’t spectacular but, for geological reasons, the creature’s brain was preserved, an extremely rare situation. So how much had the horseshoe crab’s brain changed in 310 million years? Not at all, really: A new beautifully preserved fossil of a horseshoe crab has now revealed that their brains have hardly changed since at least the Carboniferous Period… The brain structure of the ancient crab is almost identical to that of living species. In fact, it is this extraordinary similarity that meant the researchers could be confident that what they were looking at was Read More ›

polar-bear-stockpack-adobe-stock
Polar Bear
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post
Author
News
Date
August 14, 2021
Categorized
Natural Intelligence
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Polar Bears Use Stones to Kill Walruses

The unexpected bear behavior was dismissed as folklore in the past although there is certainly evidence of other life forms using rocks as tools
News
August 14, 2021
4
Natural Intelligence

At one time, researchers thought it was a myth that polar bears could use stones to kill walruses. Not any more: Walruses, weighing as much as 1,300 kilograms with huge tusks and nearly impenetrable skulls, are almost impossible for a hungry polar bear to kill. But new research suggests that some polar bears have invented a work-around — bashing walruses on the head with a block of stone or ice. For more than 200 years, Inuit in Greenland and the eastern Canadian Arctic have told stories of polar bears (Ursus maritimus) using such tools to aid in killing walruses. Yet explorers, naturalists and writers often dismissed such accounts, relegating them to myth along with tales about shape-shifting bears. Gloria Dickie, Read More ›

joke-stockpack-adobe-stock
Joke
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post
Author
News
Date
August 4, 2021
Categorized
Education, Mathematics, Natural Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind
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Why Animals Can Count But Can’t Do Math

A numerical cognition researcher outlines the differences between recognizing numbers and doing math
News
August 4, 2021
4
Education, Mathematics, Natural Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind

At The Conversation, psychology professor Silke Goebel offers some perspective on the differences between the way animals and small children process numbers and the way adults do. As a researcher in numerical cognition, she tries to focus on how brains process numbers. Her research shows that Humans and animals actually share some remarkable numerical abilities – helping them make smart decisions about where to feed and where to take shelter. But as soon as language enters the picture, humans begin outperforming animals, revealing how words and digits underpin our advanced mathematical world. Silke Goebel, “Why animals recognise numbers but only humans can do maths” at The Conversation (July 28, 2021) Essentially, she says, there are two different types of counting Read More ›

parrot-stockpack-adobe-stock
parrot
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post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
July 23, 2021
Categorized
Natural Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind
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Do Birds Really Understand What They Are Saying?

Remarkable claims are made for some birds
Denyse O'Leary
July 23, 2021
4
Natural Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind

Perhaps because parrots can carefully mimic human voices (and many other sounds), many claims are made for their intelligence For example, that they understand abstractions like currency: After training eight African grey parrots and six blue-headed macaws to barter metal rings for walnuts, the researchers paired the birds up with same-species partners. They then put the parrots in clear chambers joined by a transfer hole, and gave one bird—the donor—ten rings, while the other was left with none. Even without the promise of a reward for themselves, seven out of eight of the African grey parrot donors passed some of their available tokens through the transfer hole to their broke partners, usually shuttling them beak to beak. On average, about Read More ›

grey-wolf-in-the-forest-stockpack-adobe-stock
Grey wolf in the forest
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post
Author
News
Date
July 16, 2021
Categorized
Natural Intelligence
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Why Do Dogs Understand People Better Than Wolves?

The difference in attitude to humans between dog pups and wolf pups was dramatically demonstrated in a recent study
News
July 16, 2021
3
Natural Intelligence

Some enterprising researchers at Duke University decided to compare 44 dog pups with 37 wolf pups, between 5 and 18 weeks of age. Would the wolf pups behave the same way toward humans as the dog pups or differently? While the wolf pups got a lot of human interaction, including hand-feeding, sleeping in their caretakers’ beds and almost round-the-clock human care, the dog puppies lived mostly with their mothers and littermates. They had little human contact. Researchers hid treats in one of two bowls, then gave the dog or wolf a clue to find the food. Sometimes that included pointing and gazing in the direction where the food could be found. Even with no training, dogs as young as 8 Read More ›

the-earth-from-space-this-image-elements-furnished-by-nasa-stockpack-adobe-stock
The Earth from space. This image elements furnished by NASA.
Type
post
Author
News
Date
July 11, 2021
Categorized
Natural Intelligence, Science
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Cornell: Earth Could Be Seen by ET Far More Easily Than Thought

Using analytic software, researchers can determine whether Earth would be visible from a given star system
News
July 11, 2021
3
Natural Intelligence, Science

According to Cornell and American Museum of Natural History researchers, “Scientists have identified 2,034 nearby star-systems — within the small cosmic distance of 326 light-years — that could find Earth merely by watching our pale blue dot cross our sun”: Scientists at Cornell University and the American Museum of Natural History have identified 2,034 nearby star-systems — within the small cosmic distance of 326 light-years — that could find Earth merely by watching our pale blue dot cross our sun. That’s 1,715 star-systems that could have spotted Earth since human civilization blossomed about 5,000 years ago, and 319 more star-systems that will be added over the next 5,000 years. Exoplanets around these nearby stars have a cosmic front-row seat to Read More ›

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Frightened guilty dog pug looking sad at camera.
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post
Author
News
Date
July 2, 2021
Categorized
Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind
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Is Fear the Same Thing for a Human Being as for an Animal?

Psychiatrist Joseph Ledoux has thought about that; it’s a complex problem
News
July 2, 2021
4
Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind

Recently, we looked at consciousness from the perspective of Joseph LeDoux’s recent book, A Deep History of Ourselves (1919). Psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett situates his work at Nature, offering an interesting qualification: LeDoux, an academic at New York University in New York City, is best known for his research on fear, and for carefully mapping the brain circuit centred on the amygdala — a knot of neurons in the medial temporal lobe. The amygdala, he showed, has a crucial role in non-conscious, defensive behaviour responses such as freezing or fleeing. His conclusion, based on the assumption that all mammalian amygdala circuits are structurally similar, was that all mammals (including humans) share these responses. He described this work in The Emotional Read More ›

close-up-photo-of-green-leafed-plant-stockpack-unsplash
close up photo of green leafed plant
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post
Author
News
Date
June 25, 2021
Categorized
Natural Intelligence
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If You Do Something to a Plant, Will It Remember?

Depends. Plants turn out to be more and more like animals. NOT like people but like animals
News
June 25, 2021
5
Natural Intelligence

Plants, we are learning, have internal means of remembering and keeping track of things: In a study published in Nature Communications, researchers from Nara Institute of Science and Technology have revealed that a family of proteins that control small heat shock genes enables plants to ‘remember’ how to deal with heat stress… “Heat stress is often repeating and changing,” says lead author of the study Nobutoshi Yamaguchi. “Once plants have undergone mild heat stress, they become tolerant and can adapt to further heat stress. This is referred to as heat stress ‘memory’ and has been reported to be correlated to epigenetic modifications.” Epigenetic modifications are inheritable changes in the way genes are expressed, and do not involve changes in the Read More ›

robotic-man-cyborg-face-representing-artificial-intelligence-3d-rendering-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
Robotic man cyborg face representing artificial intelligence 3D rendering
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post
Author
News
Date
June 25, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Natural Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind
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How To Flummox an AI Neural Network

Kids can figure out the same-different distinction. So can ducklings and bees. But top AI can't.
News
June 25, 2021
3
Artificial Intelligence, Natural Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind

Science writer John Pavlus identifies a key limitation of artificial intelligence: The first episode of Sesame Street in 1969 included a segment called “One of These Things Is Not Like the Other.” Viewers were asked to consider a poster that displayed three 2s and one W, and to decide — while singing along to the game’s eponymous jingle — which symbol didn’t belong. Dozens of episodes of Sesame Street repeated the game, comparing everything from abstract patterns to plates of vegetables. Kids never had to relearn the rules. Understanding the distinction between “same” and “different” was enough. Machines have a much harder time. One of the most powerful classes of artificial intelligence systems, known as convolutional neural networks or CNNs, Read More ›

live-lobster-in-the-aquarium-product-in-the-supermarket-close-up-photo-of-big-lobsters-in-water-tank-for-sale-stockpack-adobe-stock
Live lobster in the aquarium. Product in the supermarket. Close up photo of big lobsters in water tank for sale
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post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
June 24, 2021
Categorized
Ethics, Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience
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Can Crabs Think? Can Lobsters Feel? What We Know Now

In Switzerland, it is now illegal to boil a lobster alive. Are the Swiss right? Is it cruel?
Denyse O'Leary
June 24, 2021
6
Ethics, Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience

Because crustaceans have shells, we may tend to think of them as like machines. Yet crustaceans, along with octopuses, show some surprising abilities and complexities. Take crabs, for example: A new Swansea University study has revealed how common shore crabs can navigate their way around a complex maze and can even remember the route in order to find food … Spatial learning is quite complicated, so figuring out how it works in crustaceans gives us a better understanding of how widespread this ability, and learning in general, is in the animal kingdom.” The researchers tested 12 crabs over four weeks, placing food at the end of the maze each time. The route to the end of the maze required five Read More ›

octopus-stockpack-adobe-stock
Octopus
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
June 17, 2021
Categorized
Ethics, Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience
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Octopuses Get Emotional About Pain, Research Suggests

The smartest of invertebrates, the octopus, once again prompts us to rethink what we believe to be the origin of intelligence
Denyse O'Leary
June 17, 2021
7
Ethics, Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience

The octopus is becoming a popular creature among neuroscientists. It is a very smart invertebrate with an unusually complex nervous system, organized in a fundamentally different way from that of, for example, mammals. Recently, a researcher has found the first strong evidence that octopuses feel pain, as opposed to merely reacting to it. There are two parts to pain: The natural physical reaction, like a sophisticated alarm system, sets off a chain of involuntary responses. But that chain of responses, by itself, doesn’t prove that any “self” is feeling anything. The alarm system would work just the same in an empty building as in a populated one. The second component can be called “emotional.” The life form experiences the pain Read More ›

dachsund-dog-portrait-studio-looking-up-stockpack-adobe-stock
dachsund dog portrait studio looking up.
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post
Author
News
Date
June 13, 2021
Categorized
Natural Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind, Religion
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Do Any Dogs Go To Heaven? If So, Why?

Neuroscientist Christof Koch was troubled as a child by the Catholic tradition that dogs like his beloved Purzel did not go to heaven
News
June 13, 2021
5
Natural Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind, Religion

In recent articles, we’ve discussed well-known neuroscientist Christof Koch’s Integrated Information Theory (IIT) of consciousness which, as he acknowledges, takes a panpsychist (everything is conscious to some degree) approach to the mind. He has explained his reasoning at MIT Press Reader: Materialists must see human consciousness as an illusion — but then whose illusion is it? Panpsychism allows humans to have actual consciousness but, he says, “experience may not even be restricted to biological entities but might extend to non-evolved physical systems previously assumed to be mindless — a pleasing and parsimonious conclusion about the makeup of the universe.” His perspective is gaining popularity in science. One, perhaps unexpected, factor that he mentions as shaping his overall approach was youthful Read More ›

dolphins-with-a-ball-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
dolphins with a ball
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post
Author
News
Date
June 1, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Natural Intelligence
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Can AI “Translate” Animal Languages Into Human Languages?

If we understood animal communications better, would they even seem like a language?
News
June 1, 2021
7
Artificial Intelligence, Natural Intelligence

That’s the question science writer Philip Ball, author of The Modern Myths: Adventures in the machinery of the popular imagination (2021), posed recently at The New Yorker. If a dolphin could talk, could we really understand its very different life experiences? Ball reports that some researchers are trying to translate dolphin communications (“dolphish”) into English: Today, animal-translation technologies are being developed that use the same “machine learning” approach that is applied to human languages in services such as Google Translate. These systems use neural networks to analyze vast numbers of example sentences, inferring from them general principles of grammar and usage, and then apply those patterns in order to translate sentences the system has never seen. Denise Herzing, the founder Read More ›

robot-playing-chess
Robot Playing Chess
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post
Author
Robert J. Marks
Date
June 1, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Natural Intelligence
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Chicken Little AI Dystopians: Is the Sky Really Falling?

Futurist claims about human-destroying superintelligence are uninformed and irresponsible
Robert J. Marks
June 1, 2021
5
Artificial Intelligence, Natural Intelligence

The article “How an Artificial Superintelligence Might Actually Destroy Humanity” is one of the most irresponsible pieces about AI I have read in the last five years. The author, transhumanist George Dvorsky, builds his argument on a foundation of easily popped balloons. AI is and will remain a tool. Computers can crunch numbers faster than you or me. Alexa saves a lot of time looking up results on the web or playing a selected tune from Spotify. A car – even a bicycle – can go a lot faster than I can run. AI is a tool like fire or electricity used to enhance human performance and improve lifestyles. Like fire and electricity, AI can be used for evil or Read More ›

human-brain-model-for-education-in-laboratory-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
Human brain model for education in laboratory.
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post
Author
News
Date
May 27, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind
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Intelligence: A Thousand Brains — or a Thousand Theories?

What does the iconic mammalian neocortex do that equivalent systems in birds and octopuses can’t do? That’s not clear
News
May 27, 2021
6
Artificial Intelligence, Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind

Jeff Hawkins, inventor of PalmPilot (a smartphone predecessor) and co-founder of Numenta (2005), does not lack confidence. After an interview with him in connection with his new book, A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence (Basic Books 2021), Will Douglas Heaven tells us at MIT Review, “Neuroscientist and tech entrepreneur Jeff Hawkins claims he’s figured out how intelligence works—and he wants every AI lab in the world to know about it”: He’s not the first Silicon Valley entrepreneur to think he has all the answers—and not everyone is likely to agree with his conclusions. But his ideas could shake up AI. Will Douglas Heaven, ““We’ll never have true AI without first understanding the brain”” at MIT Technology Review (March Read More ›

ai cubicles.jpg
3D rendering of a conceptual images of office cubicles where workers where replaced by artificial intelligence.
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post
Author
Stephen Berger
Date
May 26, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Natural Intelligence
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Will AI Ever Replace Human Beings? Why Do You Ask?

A better question might be: Why do we want to know the future of artificial intelligence?
Stephen Berger
May 26, 2021
9
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Natural Intelligence
The question of whether a machine can ever fully replace a human can only have one, predefined answer. My question is, why bother asking the question? You already know the only answer you will accept! Read More ›