Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

CategoryPhilosophy of Mind

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Beautiful mystical forest in blue fog in autumn. Colorful landscape with enchanted trees with orange and red leaves. Scenery with path in dreamy foggy forest. Fall colors in october. Nature background

Can Mathematics Describe Our Innermost Life When Words Fail?

What if the researchers end up with a number that means nothing while the experience itself remains a barely describable personal event?
“Evolution” theories about the human mind play a key role in the manufacture of non-knowledge posing as knowledge, and we are urged to treat them as knowledge. Read More ›
a-wildlife-conservationist-caring-for-a-rescued-endangered-species-showing-their-dedication-to-preserving-nature-stockpack-adobe-stock
A wildlife conservationist caring for a rescued, endangered species, showing their dedication to preserving nature.

If Humans Were Just Animals, We Would Not Help Animals

Whether we like it or not, the gulf fixed between humans and other animals is what makes it possible for us to reject cruelty to animals
The “human evolution” narrative that ignores the critical distinction handicaps the thinking of philosopher Hugh Desmond and many others. Read More ›
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A futuristic artificial intelligence neural network chatbot. A holographic  AI chatbot assistant. (generative AI)

Is the New Natural-Sounding Chatbot GPT4.o Breaking a Barrier?

It depends on what barrier you mean, says philosopher of technology Shannon Vallor. It could harm vulnerable people by convincing them that it is a person
It’s interesting that science fiction gets so much right — but then, about our relationship with AI, it gets the key thing so wrong. Read More ›
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big robot and soldiers in a fight

Does a Lack of Empathy Make You More Efficient?

Robocop (2014) tests out that thesis when Murphy, now a robocop, is matched against actual robots
With all of the city’s criminal records downloaded into his mind and his dopamine levels nearly zero, Murphy meets the press… Read More ›
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Portrait of Neanderthal man tending to a fire in a primitive shelter, embodying protection and provider instincts.

Could Neanderthals Speak? It Depends on Who You Talk To

Theorists who will, sadly, never converse with a living Neanderthal imagine things they could and couldn’t do linguistically
Humans can tolerate mysteries quite well as long as we can fill them in with speculations, which in the end tell us mostly about ourselves. Read More ›
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Create yourself concept. Good looking young man drawing a picture, sketch of himself

Neuroscientist: The “I” of Consciousness Cannot Be Explained Away

Skeptical philosopher David Hume tried it and, Raymond Tallis says, things collapsed almost immediately
To suppose that unthinking processes can somehow produce a thinking entity as an illusion is a sheer act of faith — faith in materialism but faith nonetheless. Read More ›
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Close-up live big lobster underwater on a on a sandy beach, poster

What Does It Mean To Say That “Lobsters Are Conscious”?

The New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness, signed in April by 40 researchers, posits a “realistic possibility of conscious experience” in all vertebrates and many invertebrates
Given that human consciousness is a Hard Problem in philosophy, we can expect useful discussions to follow — but also a good deal of silliness. Read More ›
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Robot, chat bot, android and digital evolution of robotics. Future processor development technologies. 3D illustration of quantum cyberspace. AI and global data

A Man, A Boat, and a Goat — and a Chatbot!

Forty-five years ago, Douglas Hofstadter noted a key problem with AI: It can’t do the astonishing things our brains do, as chatbots reveal when asked to solve puzzles
Not understanding what words mean or how they relate to the real world, chatbots have no way of determining whether their responses are sensible, let alone true Read More ›
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Blue abstract lightning

Astrophysicist: Electricity Can Account For Human Consciousness

Ethan Siegel set out to show that there is no design in the universe and that included reducing consciousness to electricity, with the details still to be ironed out
It’s useful to know that this sort of fact-free performance is acceptable, given the state of a materialist interpretation of consciousness today. Read More ›
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DNA, biology, origin of life, genetic science, close-up shot, ultrafine detail, colorful

Science Team Argues, Consciousness Came Before Life

Can the authors take issue with Darwinian evolution claims while maintaining a materialist stance?
Apart from demoting evolution, “consciousness first” is yet another attempt to naturalize consciousness by making it a basic origin of life process. Read More ›
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Cave paintings over five thousand years old painted on rocks in the Serra do Cipó region, Brazil

Why Did Our Ancestors Start Drawing in Caves and Making Jewelry?

For that matter, why did they choose to develop artworks around fossilized dinosaur footprints?
We can’t read the thoughts of the dead who left no decipherable writings but we can study the workings of the human mind from remarkably long ago. Read More ›
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Mysterious arch of clouds over water, portal to heaven

Can an Atheist Believe in Life After Death?

An atheist philosopher makes the case at Closer to Truth
There is much evidence to suggest that the human mind is immaterial and immateriality is one of the characteristics of things that do not die. Read More ›
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Head of a woman - showing different states of mind and being through tranparency

Was Darwinian Philosopher Daniel Dennett the End of an Era?

Dennett’s image of the human mind as a user-illusion was very fashionable but it never made any sense
Who will assume Dennett’s role as the leading, world-famous Darwinian materialist philosopher? Will the position remain — tellingly — vacant? Read More ›
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Chatbots Callcenter

Elon Musk: AI will be smarter than a human in 2025: Why he’s wrong

The superficial glibness of LLMs is a wonderful example of the adage that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing
Based on extensive training on untold amounts of text, LLMs are able to repackage superficially compelling answers that they literally do not understand. Read More ›
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blue sky ocean

Are Near-Death Experiences Just Another Branch of Research Now?

We should hope so because there are a number of interesting allied research areas that would be better studied without preexisting prejudice against NDEs
In a discussion at Psychology Today, a philosopher notes that her dissertation supporting the reality of near-death experiences was received without hostility. Read More ›
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Ideas escape from brain of pensive african man

Are Mind vs. Brain Issues Going Mainstream?

Capitol Hill lobby HillFaith has been sponsoring discussion of the immateriality of the mind in recent years
What feels remarkable is that people with an interest in political issues have even started to ask these questions. We used to be told they never would. Read More ›
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Robot, chat bot, android and digital evolution of robotics. Future processor development technologies. 3D illustration of quantum cyberspace. AI and global data

About the claim that chatbot Claude 3 showed self-awareness…

Has anyone noticed the resemblance between the conviction that an AI project thinks like a human and that extraterrestrials are visiting us?
Just as extraterrestrials are Out There because we don’t want to think we are alone, chatbots are Becoming Human because we don’t want to feel we are unique. Read More ›
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Tourists jumping off a large rock ledge in Amoudi Bay on Santorini Island in Greece.

How Is Intentionality Embedded in the Universe?

All efforts to extinguish intentionality and morality only serve to further establish their inescapable reality
The conclusion we must reach by examining our own intentionality carefully is that it has an ultimate origin from a conscious being outside of our world. Read More ›
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mindful nature

Consciousness Observes Different Laws From Physics

At Closer to Truth, British philosopher and pastor Keith Ward provides an example to host Robert Lawrence Kuhn
Only in the intellectual world are concepts like correct vs. incorrect (or right vs. wrong) meaningful. It’s a different world from the one created by physics. Read More ›
robot-hand-displays-blue-digital-interface-wearing-blue-suit-and-helmet-stockpack-adobe-stock
Robot hand displays blue digital interface, wearing blue suit and helmet.

How Materialism Handicaps Us in Understanding AI’s Limits

Sabine Hossenfelder acknowledges AI’s limits, yet she is convinced that it will become conscious
Such a position is not something the materialist derives from the evidence; it is imposed by the ideology. Read More ›