Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

CategoryPhilosophy of Mind

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In Neuroscience Flap, Science Media Tackle “Pseudoscience” Claim

As the leading theory of consciousness is tarred by neuroscientists as “pseudoscience,” science media struggle to outline just WHAT science is

As a child, I remember hearing a proverb, “When thieves fall out, honest men come by their own.” It means roughly: If you are overhearing loud, angry accusations, you may suddenly realize for the first time what really happened during many puzzling events — and hear honest statements of some Top People’s agendas. For example, it took a huge uproar around the top neuroscience theory, Integrated Information Theory (IIT), for some of us to realize how the “Keep abortion legal!” agenda dominates many neuroscientists’ concerns. That turn of events is hardly something that would have jumped out at most of us.* As noted here earlier, IIT is now under attack as “pseudoscience,” with top journal Nature covering the fight. And Read More ›

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Stump of tree felled - section of the trunk with annual rings. Slice wood.

An Introduction to Minding the Brain

Is your mind the same thing as your brain? Or are there aspects of mind that are external to the biology of the brain?

Editor’s note: We are delighted to welcome the new book from Discovery Institute Press, Minding the Brain: Models of the Mind, Information, and Empirical Science, edited by Angus J. Menuge, Brian R. Krouse, and Robert J. Marks. Below is an excerpt from the Introduction. Look for more information at MindingtheBrain.org. Is your mind the same thing as your brain? Or are there aspects of mind that are external to the biology of the brain? This question, referred to as the mind-body problem or the mind-brain problem, has been debated for centuries and has captivated curious minds since the dawn of human contemplation. What is the relationship between our mental life and physical body? Intuition suggests our subjective experience of the world is tightly Read More ›

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Bone Cell Structure: Unveiling the Building Blocks of Bones - Generative AI

Can Cells Learn? Can Molecules Communicate? What We Are Learning…

We are learning that the world of life is full of intelligence that we just did not know about

As noted last Wednesday, the science journal Nature reported on an uproar in neuroscience while sidestepping the uproar’s underlying basis: the leading theory of human consciousness today, Integrated Information Theory (IIT), is panpsychist, not eliminationist. That is, instead of trying to show that even human consciousness is merely an evolved illusion, IIT is compatible with the idea that some form of consciousness might pervade all life forms. The real difficulty with assessing any claim about human consciousness is that we can’t even define clearly what it is. However, suppose we have a more modest goal. We just want to understand why eliminative materialism seems to be failing and panpsychism, whether it is a good thing or a bad thing, is Read More ›

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the head of a person is full of different numbers Generative AI

Did “Evolution” Wire Human Brains to “Act Like Supercomputers”?

In making such a claim, psychology researchers may have got more than they bargained for

Intelligent design theory is still a third rail in science. But a media release for a recent research publication seems to subtly adopt its language. Researchers associated with the University of Sydney found that human brains are “naturally wired to perform advanced calculations, much like a high-powered computer, to make sense of the world through a process known as Bayesian inference.” Bayesian inference is based on Bayes’ Theorem; essentially, it’s a decision-making tool, “a means for revising predictions in light of relevant evidence, also known as conditional probability or inverse probability.” (Britannica). Originally developed by Presbyterian minister and mathematician Thomas Bayes (1702–1761) and found among his papers after his death, Bayesian inference is used today to assess probabilities using advanced Read More ›

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Human brain on a gray background

“Minding the Brain” Tops the Amazon Charts

The latest release from Discovery Institute Press is a #1 new release on Amazon

The latest release from Discovery Institute Press is a #1 new release on Amazon, in the bookseller’s “Consciousness & Thought Philosophy” section. Congratulations to the editors of Minding the Brain: Models of the Mind, Information, and Empirical Science — Angus Menuge, Brian Krouse, and Robert J. Marks! The book has scored some terrific endorsements, including this: Materialism about the mind is a deeply entrenched assumption, so much so that alternative viewpoints are shrugged aside as inconsequential. Minding the Brain challenges that mindset, but not by giving a single, knock-down refutation of materialism or a single, obviously superior alternative. Instead, it presents a kaleidoscopic array involving multiple objections and multiple alternatives, authored by highly competent thinkers from neuroscience, consciousness studies, computer science, information theory, and Read More ›

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The complexity of digital ethics background. generative AI

Leading Consciousness Theory Slammed as “Pseudoscience.” Huh?

Integrated Information Theory’s panpsychist leanings are the 124 neuroscientist critics’ real target

Since last week, 124 neuroscientists, including some really big names, have signed an online letter,” to be published in a journal, denouncing a leading theory of consciousness, Integrated Information Theory (IIT), as “pseudoscience.” If you don’t follow these controversies, IIT may not immediately ring a bell. But the theory featured in popular science news earlier this summer when dualist philosopher David Chalmers won a 25-year bet with IIT neuroscientist Christof Koch. He had bet that a “consciousness spot” would not be found in the brain and it was not. But they were both good sports about it and, as agreed, Koch bought Chalmers a case of fine wine. But the signatories to the letter are in no mood for parties. Read More ›

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Businessman in split personality concept. High quality photo

Split Mind: The Strangest Theory in Neuroscience?

The idea that we might all have separate, undetected consciousnesses in each half of our brain supports materialism but there’s little evidence for it

A century ago, many scientists — though certainly not all — cherished the hope that science would some day show that our universe is entirely determined by laws of physics physicalism. Neuroscientists insisted, along these lines, that the mind is simply the physical processes of the brain. But neuroscience is identifying many facts that show that the mind is independent of the brain. While working on the book that neurosurgeon Michael Egnor and I are writing on neuroscience evidence for the human soul (Worthy, 2024), I learned something remarkable: Some people’s brains have been split in half (corpus callosotomy) to treat otherwise intractable epilepsy) typically continue to think normally. For people who believe that the mind is simply the buzz Read More ›

Minding the Brain

The Mind is More than the Brain

A new anthology, out today, features 25 philosophers with fresh insights on the mind-body problem.

An exciting new anthology from Discovery Institute Press is out today: Minding the Brain: Models of the Mind, Information, and Empirical Science, in which 25 philosophers and scientists offer fresh insights into the mind-brain debate, drawing on psychology, neurology, philosophy, computer science, and neurosurgery. Their provocative conclusion? The mind is indeed more than the brain. We will be offering brief excerpts here in weeks to come. The Mind-Brain Problem The book is edited by Angus J. Menuge, Brian R. Krouse, and Robert J. Marks, who explain in the Introduction: Is your mind the same thing as your brain? Or are there aspects of mind that are external to the biology of the brain? This question, referred to as the mind-body problem Read More ›

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Doctor Defibrillating Critical Patient In Hospital

Near-Death Experience Study: Brain Is Active After Death

Science media are making surprisingly few efforts to attack or explain away the team’s findings

A recent study led by near-death researcher Sam Parnia of the consciousness of patients whose hearts have stopped is providing more baseline data about the circumstances under which many near-death experiences occur. A team at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, working with 25 hospitals mostly in the US and Britain, studied the “lucid death experiences” that can occur when heart attack survivors are apparently unconscious. Of 567 patients, only 53 (9.3%) survived. Most of them were flatlined, meaning that they had no brain activity at a certain point. Sometimes brain activity was restored as late as up to an hour later. Only 28 of them completed interviews. According to the media release for the open-access study, “Four in 10 Read More ›

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Silhouettes of people observing stars in night sky. Astronomy concept.

Another Non-Computable Trait: Spiritual Longing

You can't program spiritual longing into a computer, not matter how savvy the algorithm.

What makes human beings unique, compared to say, a piece of granite? What distinguishes us from advanced artificial intelligence? Robert J. Marks has argued that several characteristics set us apart from the machines in his book Non-Computable You. This week, scientist Eric Hedin, citing from the classic thought of Anglo-Irish writer C.S. Lewis, adds another trait to the list: spiritual longing for something greater than the material. Hedin writes, If physical desires, such as hunger, rightly indicate that we were meant to be satisfied with food, then the longing for something that transcends even our most lavish experiences of abundance must also indicate an attainable fulfillment we have never yet tasted and without which we cannot be fully satisfied. Stated Read More ›

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statue of descartes

Was Descartes Right About the Mind?

In which a neurosurgeon and anthropologist discuss the nature of the mind

In case you missed it, earlier this month we released a podcast featuring a provocative conversation between Stony Brook neurosurgeon Michael Egnor and Dr. Joshua Farris, who specializes in the theological anthropology and philosophy of mind. Together they discuss a range of issues, including the thought of the philosopher René Descartes, Thomistic dualism, materialistic explanations for consciousness, and the inevitability of metaphysics when discussing the “mind-body problem.” Follow this link to listen to it for free.

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Ideas escape from brain of pensive african man

Does Left Brain-Only Thinking Impoverish Our Mental World? How?

A discussion of the left brain vs the right brain that avoids pop science can set us thinking, as psychiatrist McGilchrist and neurologist Dirckx show

Recently, we looked at a discussion between Christian neuroscientist Sharon Dirckx and eclectic psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist on the nature of the mind. The stimulating level of their conversation on Justin Brierley’s show Unbelievable pointed up — by omission — the wasteland that eliminative materialism brings to so much discussion of the mind today. The middle part of the discussion focused on McGilchrist’s approach to the difference between “right-brain” and “left brain” thinking. Essentially, our brains are lateralized, such that two duplicate halves control opposite sides of our bodies — but they also specialize for some specific functions. So your right brain controls your left hand, and so forth. This topic often degenerates into debunkable pop science fluff. The fluff loses Read More ›

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Create yourself concept. Good looking young man drawing a picture, sketch of himself

Our Essential “I”ness … the Search for Its Address in the Brain

Does “I” — the first person singular — have or need a fixed address in the brain?

Neuroscience seems caught between a quest for the exact spot where self-awareness is generated and theorizing that self-awareness is really an illusion. A search for the spot in the brain that corresponds to “I” — as in Descartes’ famous formulation, “I think, therefore I am” begins with an assumption: That there is any such address in the brain. How is the search coming? Historically, we have located our sense of self in our hearts or heads. Both locations make sense, in different ways. Our hearts pound when we have strong feelings. As for our heads, it’s more complicated… When, in as-yet unpublished work, Christina Starmans and her colleagues showed people from the US and India pictures of flies circling around Read More ›

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Atom

Does Consciousness Defeat Materialism?

There is a re-emerging interest in consciousness and the mind

What would it take for “consciousness,” undoubtedly a nebulous and broad term, to defeat the idea that the mind is no more than the brain? For Dean Radin, a parapsychology researcher who was featured on the Closer to Truth program this month, it depends on what you mean by matter. “If you just look through history about the nature of matter, how has it changed historically, it has become more and more ephemeral. And I will imagine it will continue to become more ephemeral,” he said. For Radin, then, matter is complicated, and if you look closely enough, ends up being “mostly nothing.” If you’ve seen the new Oppenheimer movie, directed by Christopher Nolan, perhaps you’ll remember the scene in Read More ›

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Brain psychology mind soul and hope concept art, 3d illustration, surreal artwork, imagination painting, conceptual idea

The Mind: A Neuroscientist and a Psychiatrist Walk Into a…

Psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist, conversing with Christian neuroscientist Sharon Dirckx about materialism’s deficits, shows considerable sympathy for panpsychism

No, this isn’t the beginning of a stand-up gag but rather of an interesting discussion at Unbelievable’s The Big Conversation (Episode 3, Season 4, Jul 1, 2022), hosted by Justin Brierley. The participants seem well-matched: Sharon Dirckx is a neuroscientist and Christian apologist who speaks and writes on human consciousness, and the problem of evil. The author of Am I Just My Brain? (Oxford Apologetics, 2019), she is especially interested in “intersection of science and theology, questions of human consciousness and identity, and the problem of evil.” and Iain McGilchrist, a psychiatrist who has specialized in the overlap between psychiatry and neurology, has written both for colleagues and the public about the mind–body relationship. He “is committed to the idea Read More ›

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old vintage monochrome photographs in sepia color are scattered on a wooden table, the concept of genealogy, the memory of ancestors, family ties, memories of childhood

Is Dementia Research Missing the Forest for the Trees?

Sudden bouts of lucidity in people with dementia are understudied, researchers admit

Researchers have begun to ask about the curious fact that persons with obvious dementia sometimes have lucid episodes: “In the last week, Sarah has occasionally said things that were recognizable, startling her family. Most notably, on two occasions, she clearly and unexpectedly told her spouse, “I’m scared. I want you to come with me.” These episodes unsettled him. He reported them to Sarah’s physician, asking for advice. (This case is adapted from one of the author’s [JK] clinical experiences.)” – Peterson A, Clapp J, Largent EA, Harkins K, Stites SD, Karlawish J. What is paradoxical lucidity? The answer begins with its definition. Alzheimers Dement. 2022 Mar;18(3):513-521. doi: 10.1002/alz.12424. Epub 2021 Aug 2. PMID: 34338400; PMCID: PMC8807788. The paper is open Read More ›

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Conceptual image to be used as background. Facade of buildings, representing architecture or offices of the business world.

Neuroscientist vows post-wager: We’ll nail consciousness yet!

Anil Seth, proponent of the “hallucination” theory of consciousness, vows that researchers will find that consciousness spot or circuit in the brain

Prominent University of Sussex neuroscientist Anil Seth shared some thoughts at Nautilus on neuroscientist Christof Koch losing the 1998 wager with philosopher David Chalmers this year. He had bet that a consciousness spot or circuit would be found in the human brain within the next 25 years. It wasn’t. Seth offers, Back in the late 1990s, consciousness science was full of renewed promise. Koch—a natural optimist—believed that 25 years was more than enough time for scientists to uncover the neural correlates of consciousness: those patterns of brain activity that underlie each and every one of our conscious experiences. – Anil Seth, “Finding the Neural Correlates to Consciousness Is Still a Good Bet,” Nautilus, July 5, 2023 As author of Being Read More ›

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Love emotion or empathy cerebral or brain activity in caudate nucleus. Interaction and connection between two people. Conceptual 3d illustration of interactive neurological stimulation or telepathy.

When You Sync With Someone, Your Brains Wave Together

Neuroscientists have found that co-operation results in brain wave synchrony

At Scientific American, Lydia Denworth brought up an interesting topic earlier this month: The way that brain waves synchronize between two people who are communicating successfully: Neurons in corresponding locations of the different brains fire at the same time, creating matching patterns, like dancers moving together. Auditory and visual areas respond to shape, sound and movement in similar ways, whereas higher-order brain areas seem to behave similarly during more challenging tasks such as making meaning out of something seen or heard. The experience of “being on the same wavelength” as another person is real, and it is visible in the activity of the brain.” – Lydia Denworth, “Brain Waves Synchronize when People Interact,” Scientific American, July 1, 2023 For example, Read More ›

The doctor checks up x-ray film of the brain by ct scan brain at the patient's room hospital. Doctor radiologists looking at x-ray images

It’s Becoming Clearer That the Mind Is Not the Brain

The “science of consciousness” not only has no workable materialist theory but it’s unclear what such a theory should look like or explain

Not surprisingly, given that philosopher David Chalmers won the famous wager with neuroscientist Christof Koch last month, the topic of consciousness has been in the news a lot. In 25 years of research, no one has found a specific consciousness circuit, spot, wave, or whatever in the brain. Consciousness is still the “Hard Problem of Consciousness.” At Vox, Oshan Jarow, a writer who knows the field, tells us that the bet has been renewed for another 25 years and offers an interpretation of why scientists haven’t “cracked” consciousness so far: “we still lack a definitive, falsifiable explanation. We even lack consensus on whether one may ever exist.” Eventually, in this view, the field might coalesce around a unified theory and Read More ›

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Luxury perfume bottles at a fragrance scent presentation at the event at night

How Can a Woman Missing Her Olfactory Bulbs Still Smell?

The brain’s plasticity intrigues and puzzles researcher, and it also raises a larger issue

Even since neuroscientists started imaging the brain, they’ve been turning up cases where people are missing brain parts we would expect them to need in order to do something — but they are doing that very thing anyway. One example, written up in LiveScience in 2019, concerns women who are missing their olfactory bulbs (illustrated) but can still smell: Researchers have discovered a small group of people that seem to defy medical science: They can smell despite lacking “olfactory bulbs,” the region in the front of the brain that processes information about smells from the nose. It’s not clear how they are able to do this, but the findings suggest that the human brain may have a greater ability to Read More ›