Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

CategoryPhilosophy of Mind

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Mind Atoms
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post
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News
Date
July 4, 2021
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Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind
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Neurosurgeon Egnor Takes on Philosopher Papineau Round 1

In the debate, Egnor begins by offering three fundamental reasons why the mind is not the brain
News
July 4, 2021
7
Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind

Recently, neurosurgeon Michael Egnor debated philosopher David Papineau at Theology Unleashed. Papineau is considered “one of the best defenders of naturalism” (actually, as he admits, physicalism). Egnor talks about how science and the practice of medicine persuaded him that there is a God and that the mind is real. The host is Arjuna and the show is billed as “Eastern theology meets Western skepticism.” What follows is a partial transcript of the first portion, with notes: Michael Egnor: Just as a little background about where I’m coming from, I was raised as a functional atheist, and I was educated as a scientific atheist, so I was an atheist for most of my life. I was a biochemistry major in college, 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
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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 ›

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concept of Different emotions drawn on colorfull cubes, wooden background.
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post
Author
News
Date
July 2, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Peer Review, Philosophy of Mind
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Emotion Recognition Software Use Spreads While Science Is Doubted

Emotional recognition software has been coming under fire for misuse and racial bias for some time
News
July 2, 2021
4
Artificial Intelligence, Peer Review, Philosophy of Mind

An editor at AI Trends notes The global emotion detection and recognition market is projected to grow to $37.1 billion by 2026, up from an estimated $19.5 billion in 2020, according to a recent report from MarketsandMarkets. North America is home to the largest market. John P. Desmond, “Market for Emotion Recognition Projected to Grow as Some Question Science” at AI Trends (June 24, 2021) But the software has been coming under fire for misuse and racial bias for some time: “How people communicate anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise varies substantially across cultures, situations, and even across people within a single situation,” stated the report, from a team of researchers led by Lisa Feldman Barrett, of Northeastern University, Read More ›

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Charting Consciousness.
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post
Author
News
Date
June 30, 2021
Categorized
Philosophy of Mind

Consciousness Is Mainly a Problem for Materialists

If you are not a materialist, there is no problem with understanding consciousness
News
June 30, 2021
4
Philosophy of Mind

Psychiatrist Joseph LeDoux, author of The Deep History of Ourselves (2019), offers an extract at Aeon, musing on the mystery of consciousness. In a way, his approach typifies the problem with the wholly materialist approach to the mind and the brain: Like all living things, humans are organisms, biological entities that function as physiological aggregates whose constituent parts operate with a high degree of cooperation and a low degree of conflict. But unlike other organisms, humans possess a rogue component – a brain network that can, at will, choose to defect and undermine the survival mission and purpose of the rest of the body. This is the network that underlies human consciousness, and especially our capacity for autonoetic, or reflective, Read More ›

the-universe-inside-us-the-profile-of-a-young-woman-and-space-the-effect-of-double-exposure-scientific-concept-the-brain-and-creativity-elements-of-this-image-furnished-by-nasa-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
The universe inside us, the profile of a young woman and space, the effect of double exposure. scientific concept. The brain and creativity. Elements of this image furnished by NASA
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post
Author
News
Date
June 27, 2021
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Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind, Science
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Do Larger Brains Make Us Human? Is That All?

Brain organoid studies suggest a “key genetic switch” that makes human brains grow larger than ape brains
News
June 27, 2021
5
Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind, Science

In a study of “mini-brains” (brain organoids), the size of a pea, grown in a dish and incapable of further development, researchers have discovered a “key genetic switch” that makes human brains grow three times larger than primate brains: This new research, published in the journal Cell, used brain organoids to show that this transition occurs more slowly in humans compared to gorillas and chimpanzees – over seven days, compared to five. The progenitor cells in human brain organoids not only retained their cylindrical shape for longer, but also split more frequently so more cells were produced. This was linked to a gene called ZEB2, which switches on sooner in gorilla brain organoids than in human. By delaying the effects Read More ›

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Human brain with an implanted chip.
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post
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News
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June 27, 2021
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Ethics, Medicine and Health, Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind
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Can Implanted Computer Chips Cure Depression?

Brain–computer interface (BCI) is promising for paralysis and prosthetics but raises concerns in the treatment of depression
News
June 27, 2021
5
Ethics, Medicine and Health, Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind

Brain computer interface (BCI) shows promise in treating paralysis or enabling prosthetics to work almost naturally. But BCI for treating depression sounds like hype: Say goodbye to pills, therapy, and all that. With such gloomy prospects, it was only a matter of time scientists realized there must be better ways to treat depression rather than pills. After all, drugs only work because they act on certain brain regions to modulate the concentration of certain neurotransmitters, like serotonin or dopamine. Therefore, in the end, the regulation of mood depends on stimulating brain signals in certain parts of the brain — that is, neurons firing — and this can be done more accurately by just zapping the neurons directly with electricity. Diego Read More ›

Text paper trees
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News
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June 25, 2021
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Philosophy of Mind
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Science Journalist: No Hype. Consciousness Is a HARD Problem!

Michael Hanlon reflected on the many futile efforts to “solve” consciousness
News
June 25, 2021
4
Philosophy of Mind

British science journalist Michael Hanlon (1964–2016), co-author with Tracey Brown of In the Interests of Safety (2014), had some sobering things to say about the trivial pursuit of an easy theory of consciousness. Considering materialist philosopher Daniel Dennett and less materialist philosopher David Chalmers (who coined the term the “Hard Problem of Consciousness”), he reflects, Nearly a quarter of a century ago, Daniel Dennett wrote that: ‘Human consciousness is just about the last surviving mystery.’ A few years later, Chalmers added: ‘[It] may be the largest outstanding obstacle in our quest for a scientific understanding of the universe.’ They were right then and, despite the tremendous scientific advances since, they are still right today. I do not think that 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 ›

tin robots.jpg
Vintage tin robot toys
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post
Author
News
Date
June 21, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, Philosophy of Mind
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Researchers: Humans “Exploit” Machines Without a Sense of Guilt!

Humans, we are told, are so unethical that we take advantage of "benevolent" self-driving cars
News
June 21, 2021
4
Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, Philosophy of Mind

In case no one knew this, humans are cruel, greedy, and deceptive. We even take advantage of self-driving cars. Our crimes are revealed in a recent study that scolds humans as “unwilling to cooperate and compromise with machines. They even exploit them.” When you’ve stopped laughing, you might be interested to learn of some intriguing findings from studies of human behavior around self-driving cars (autonomous vehicles) and Prisoner’s Dilemma games. One team of researchers, in a test involving 9 experiments and 2000 participants, tried to determine whether humans would behave as co-operatively with AI systems as we do with fellow humans: The study which is published in the journal iScience found that, upon first encounter, people have the same level Read More ›

choosing-the-high-road-or-low-road-stockpack-adobe-stock
Choosing the High Road or Low Road
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post
Author
News
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June 20, 2021
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Information Theory, Philosophy of Mind, Science
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Freebits: An Interesting Argument From the Big Bang for Free Will

There are two types of uncertainty, we learn, only one of which could create free will
News
June 20, 2021
5
Information Theory, Philosophy of Mind, Science

Caleb Scharf (pictured), author of The Ascent of Information (2021), offers an excerpt at Nautilus that introduces two new terms, the “dataome” and “freebits.” The dataome is all the ways human beings create information, from cave paintings to cloud servers. He asks, “Was all of this really inevitable? Did we ever have a choice in creating a dataome or doing any of the things we do, and does any self-aware entity in the universe have a choice either?” Relying on theoretical computer scientist Scott Aaronson’s 2013 essay, “The Ghost in the Quantum Turing Machine,” he asks us to consider that there are two types of uncertainty, only one of which could create choice. Typical “randomness” actually follows statistical laws, a Read More ›

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Archaeological excavation.
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News
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June 17, 2021
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Philosophy of Mind, Science
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Death: Child Grave From 80,000 Years Ago Shows Abstract Thinking

The lovingly prepared site on the Kenyan coast held the remains of a 2–3 year-old child
News
June 17, 2021
5
Philosophy of Mind, Science

A child’s grave, found recently in Kenya, pushes clear evidence of abstract thinking back to 80,000 years ago, the Middle Stone Age. The child, nicknamed “Mtoto” (child in Swahili) by the archaeologists, was 2½ – 3 years old; whether a boy or a girl is as yet unclear: In a tour de force of discovery, recovery, and analysis, an interdisciplinary research team has uncovered the earliest known human burial in Africa. The grave, found less than 10 miles inland from southeast Kenya’s lush ocean beaches, contained the remains of a two- to three-year-old child buried with extraordinary care by a community of early Homo sapiens some 78,000 years ago. While some human burials in the Middle East and Europe are Read More ›

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dachsund dog portrait studio looking up.
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post
Author
News
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June 13, 2021
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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 ›

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duck decoy with stuffed and calls
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post
Author
News
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June 13, 2021
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Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Science
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A Physicist’s Defense of Reality, Despite Quantum Physics

He explains why Eddington’s solid table really IS solid, even if, at the highest resolution, it is mostly empty space
News
June 13, 2021
4
Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Science

In the wake of quantum physics, King’s College philosopher of physics Alexander Franklin is concerned to stress that “everyday reality is not illusory but emergent”: Popular science often tells us that we are radically deceived by the commonplace appearance of everyday objects and that colour and solidity are illusions. For instance, the physicist Sir Arthur Eddington [pictured] distinguished in 1928 between two tables: the familiar table and the scientific table, while the former is solid and coloured, the scientific table “is nearly all empty space”. Eddington then makes the striking claim that “modern physics has by delicate test and remorseless logic assured me that my second scientific table is the only one which is really there”. Alexander Franklin, “Solid objects Read More ›

numbers waves face
Birth of Virtual Consciousness
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post
Author
News
Date
June 12, 2021
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Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind
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Neuroscientist: Conscious AI Is Not an Insurmountable Problem

Neuroscientist: Conscious AI is not an insurmountable problem
News
June 12, 2021
4
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind

Neuroscientist Ryota Kanai, founder and CEO of Tokyo-based startup Araya, aims to “understand the computational basis of consciousness and to create conscious AI.” He isn’t sure, he says, if we want AI to be conscious. But, technically, he doesn’t see it as an insurmountable problem: If we can’t figure out why AIs do what they do, why don’t we ask them? We can endow them with metacognition—an introspective ability to report their internal mental states. Such an ability is one of the main functions of consciousness. It is what neuroscientists look for when they test whether humans or animals have conscious awareness. For instance, a basic form of metacognition, confidence, scales with the clarity of conscious experience. When our brain Read More ›

person behind mask
creature
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post
Author
News
Date
June 6, 2021
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Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind
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We Are Now Informed: Consciousness Does Not Really Exist

Rubbish. Giving up consciousness as an illusion would be like turning off the master switch. What would the ensuing darkness and powerlessness tell us?
News
June 6, 2021
2
Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind
What you think is enabling you to listen with any attention to neuroscientists (your dog, coffee cup, and your toothpaste are not listening to neuroscientists) is something — some of them tell us — we should give up as an illusion. Read More ›
egg-power-fear-hammer-stockpack-pexels
Egg power fear hammer
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post
Author
News
Date
June 6, 2021
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Economics, Philosophy of Mind
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Is More Coercion — in Principle — an “Extension” of Morality?

Activist Garrett Hardin popularized government coercion to “save the planet” in 1968
News
June 6, 2021
5
Economics, Philosophy of Mind

Recently, the Communist Party of China has announced permission for the three-child family, possibly because of the demographic ruin that the previous one-child family has occasioned in that country. But the basic idea that government should control everything is not new and it did not originate in China. Let’s go back to the 1960s in the United States. In 1968, Garrett Hardin (1915–2003) made a famous appeal in the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s magazine, Science, for good old-fashioned coercion of human beings to stop having so many children: The abstract for his “Tragedy of the Commons” (Science, 1968), a Cool concept at the time, read simply “The population problem has no technical solution; it requires a fundamental Read More ›

giant abacus
A cute girl playing with wooden abacus. Educational concept for kids. Learing to count. Math for children. Math for children.
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post
Author
News
Date
June 5, 2021
Categorized
Mathematics, Philosophy of Mind
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The Mystery of Numeracy: How DID We Learn To Count?

Some animals can do rough figuring but only humans count
News
June 5, 2021
3
Mathematics, Philosophy of Mind

At a time when many people see numbers, arithmetic, and mathematics as mere oppression, others are intrigued by the basic question, how did the human race learn to do math? There are some clues, as a new project called Quanta is trying to establish. First, while no animals use abstract numbers in the wild, some animals can do rough figuring: Although researchers once thought that humans were the only species with a sense of quantity, studies since the mid-twentieth century have revealed that many animals share the ability. For instance, fish, bees and newborn chicks can instantly recognize quantities up to four, a skill known as subitizing. Some animals are also capable of ‘large-quantity discrimination’: they can appreciate the difference Read More ›

tree-brain-with-human-head-cape-idea-concept-of-think-hope-freedom-and-mind-surreal-artwork-dream-art-fantasy-landscape-imagination-of-nature-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
Tree brain with human head cape, idea concept of think hope freedom and mind , surreal artwork, dream art , fantasy landscape, imagination of nature
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post
Author
News
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June 5, 2021
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Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind
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New Paper Provides Further Evidence for Free Will

According to the new research, many of the busy brain signals on which the “no free will” position depends on were system noise
News
June 5, 2021
6
Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind

We all sense that free will is real. We know that we could have stopped ourselves from making some mistakes. For decades, some neuroscientists have claimed that free will is an illusion, based on some well-publicized experiments. Some recent research challenges that: Experiments spanning the 1960s and 1980s measured brain signals noninvasively and led many neuroscientists to believe that our brains make decisions before we do—that human actions were initiated by electrical waves that did not reflect free, conscious thought. However, a new article in Trends in Cognitive Science argues that recent research undermines this popular case against free will. “This new perspective on the data turns on its head the way well-known findings have been interpreted,” said Adina Roskies, Read More ›

little-brave-pawn-wearing-artificial-paper-crown-suit-on-chessboard-with-figures-business-entrepreneur-leadership-concept-stockpack-adobe-stock
Little brave pawn wearing artificial paper crown suit on chessboard with figures, business entrepreneur leadership concept
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post
Author
News
Date
June 4, 2021
Categorized
Ethics, Medicine and Health, Philosophy of Mind
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Do You Have a “Selfish Prefrontal Cortex”?

Do you tell “white lies” only for selfish motives?
News
June 4, 2021
3
Ethics, Medicine and Health, Philosophy of Mind

A recent neuroscience paper claims to determine whether your motives are selfish: You may think a little white lie about a bad haircut is strictly for your friend’s benefit, but your brain activity says otherwise. Distinct activity patterns in the prefrontal cortex reveal when a white lie has selfish motives, according to new research published in Journal of Neuroscience. White lies — formally called Pareto lies — can benefit both parties, but their true motives are encoded by the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC). This brain region computes the value of different social behaviors, with some subregions focusing on internal motivations and others on external ones. Kim and Kim predicted activity patterns in these subregions could elucidate the true motive behind Read More ›

veterinarian-feeding-african-gray-parrot-stockpack-adobe-stock
Veterinarian feeding African gray parrot
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post
Author
News
Date
June 4, 2021
Categorized
Philosophy of Mind
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Is the Key to Human Language To Be Found In Singing Birds?

If singing birds can explain human speech, why aren’t the birds all giving interviews?
News
June 4, 2021
5
Philosophy of Mind

That’s the claim of a recent article in Cognitive Sciences: The study is based on evidence from diverse fields such as archaeology, evolutionary genomics, neurobiology, animal behaviour and clinical researcher on neuropsychiatric disorders. With these, it shows that the reduction of reactive aggressiveness, resulting from the evolution and process of self-domestication of our species, could have led to an increase in the complexity of speech. According to the authors, this development would be caused by the lowest impact on brain networks of stress hormones, neurotransmitters that activate in aggressive situations, and which would be crucial when learning to speak. To show this interaction, researchers analysed the genomic, neurobiological and singing-type differences between the domesticated Bengalese finch and its closest wild Read More ›