CategoryPhilosophy of Mind
Is Free Will a Dangerous Myth?
The denial of free will is a much more dangerous myth
Knowledge is power, sort of…
If that’s ALL knowledge is, the resulting science is bound to be limited, says Michael Egnor
Do either machines—or brains—really learn?
A further response to Jeffrey Shallit: Actually, brains don’t learn either. Only minds learn.
Machines really can learn!
A computer scientist responds to my parableJeffrey Shallit argues that a computer is not just a machine, but something quite special.
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Could AI Understand the Universe?
World-renowned chemist thinks it might understand what we can’t, including consciousness
Could HAL 9000 Ever Be Built?
I say yes. Some reflections on the 50th Year Anniversary of 2001: A Space OdysseyAt one point on the trip from Earth to Jupiter, HAL becomes suspicious that the crew might be sabotaging the mission. HAL then purposely tries to kill all the crew. The most logical explanation for this act is a coding error. HAL was programmed to operate on the basis that the mission took priority over human life.
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Can a Game Prove That Computers Could Really Think?
Philosopher Daniel Dennett thinks so. Let's apply Occam's Razor and seeDo Big Brains Matter to Human Intelligence?
We don’t know. Brain research readily dissolves into confusion at that pointWe also know very little about the human brain. Take this controversy about why the large human brain evolved...
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Why Can’t Machines Learn Simple Tasks?
They can learn to play chess more easily than to walk
The Brain Is Not a “Meat Computer”
Dramatic recoveries from brain injury highlight the differenceThe 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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Boy loses large hunk of brain
And is “doing just fine”
AI That Can Read Minds?
Deconstructing AI hypeThe source for the claims seems to be a 2018 journal paper, "Real-time classification of auditory sentences using evoked cortical activity in humans." The carefully described results are indeed significant but what the Daily Mail article didn't tell you sheds a rather different light on the AI mind reader.
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How to hack your unconscious mind
Assuming it exists
Attend your own funeral!
It’s easy if you upload your consciousness to the cloud, says futurist
Can free will even be an illusion?
Michael Egnor reiterates the freeing implications of quantum indeterminacyMany say so. For example, at Cosmos, senior artificial intelligence research scientist Alfredo Metere explains, … there is a causal relationship between the Big Bang and us. In other words, free will is not allowed, and all of our actions are just a mere consequence of that first event. Such a view is known as “determinism”, or “super-determinism” (if one finds it productive to reinvent the wheel). He asserts that today we know the universe to be chaotic. Because the cosmos is clearly chaotic, we can observe time-reversibility only locally, rather than globally. This in turn means that free will is an inevitable illusion for us humans, due to our subjective perception of the universe, rather than its innermost nature. Read More ›
Robot Priests: And You Thought “Robotic Religion” Was Just a Pointed Criticism…?
You know, rote prayers, mindless gestures… Is that the way of the future for some?
Reconciling mind with materialism, twenty-five years on
Jerry Fodor posits that the reason "we're all materialists" is the alternatives seem even worseThinking of philosophical materialism as a science must have seemed like a step forward at the time. Over twenty-five years later, there have been dozens of theories of consciousness jostling for the podium, most of them “worse than wrong,” even in the eyes of a sympathetic observer (2016). Not only has the materialist approach failed but in recent years, its failure has brought serious intellectual figures round to such views as consciousness is an illusion or that everything is conscious.
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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.Why “Mind Matters” Matter
Mind Matters is a podcast and a news and commentary site where “artificial and natural intelligence meet head-on.” That’s a great slogan, but what does it mean? As your host for the podcast part of the site, I thought I’d take advantage of my role to talk you about some of our exciting plans for both the podcast and the online journal (the latter to be edited by science journalist Denyse O’Leary). Here’s a quick run-down: Topics Mind Matters will track the latest developments in applied AI and technology. How will AI continue to augment human performance and abilities? What are the latest innovations of AI? And how does AI affect you? How is AI applied in pricing your admission Read More ›