Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

CategoryPhilosophy of Mind

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How Believing You’ll Get Better May Affect Your Brain

A placebo effect experiment in mice pinpointed a change in an area of the brain not previously known to be involved in pain control
With humans, it is likely more complex but identifying the neural correlates of expectation may help produce more effective pain relief in humans and animals. Read More ›
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Cute and little robot helper with artificial intelligence raising hand. Generative AI

Programmer: Chatbots Are a Dead End. Time for a New Contest!

François Chollet is offering $1.1m in prize money for the next step on the road to computers that think like people
But what if computers that think like people are a hard ceiling, like time travel — because not all thinking is 1's and 0's…? Read More ›
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Emergency Department: Doctors, Nurses and Surgeons Move Seriously Injured Patient Lying on a Stretcher Through Hospital Corridors. Medical Staff in a Hurry Move Patient into Operating Theater.

The Mind Is Not Annihilated at Death, Emergency Room Doctor Says

ER specialist Sam Parnia is making waves with his challenge, based on his clinical experience and research, to the claim that the human mind is annihilated at death
Parnia says he is not religious. Rather, his views are the outcome of clinical experience in a field where doctors have literally never gone before. Read More ›
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Close-up of a white flower with water in the foreground and a blurred background to the right of the image

“Plant Philosophy” Denigrates Human Uniqueness

Much contemporary advocacy is obsessed with deconstructing human exceptionalism
Plant philosophy seeks to change the definitional understandings of “intelligence” to elevate the moral status of plants relative to humans. Read More ›
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Man having dementia while sitting on his living room, trying to remember some place inside a sea of memories

A Status Report From the War on Late Life Dementia

Almost half of dementia cases could be prevented or delayed, researchers believe
Increasing longevity and widespread early diagnosis will mean that delaying the progress of the disease becomes very important over the next few decades. Read More ›
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Elderly father adult son and grandson out for a walk in the park.

Dementia: New insights in caring for deeply forgetful people

Dr. Stephen Post, an expert in memory disorders, talks to neurosurgeon Michael Egnor about when and how people suddenly remember again
Dr. Post considers it implausible that “rementia,” the sudden, brief return of a personal identity, can be explained purely in material brain terms. Read More ›
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Female robot face, Artificial intelligence concept. Generative AI

Programmer: AI could certainly become conscious

From Casper Wilstrup's perspective, we can't demonstrate that anything is NOT conscious so creating conscious AI is simply a matter of using the scientific method
The reason Casper Wilstrup is so sure is that he has adopted panpsychism — the view that everything participates in consciousness. Read More ›
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Ultrasound of a fetus at 20 weeks

Unborn Child Learns the Accents, Rhythms of Mom’s Native Language

There is, however, a dark, little-told tale about how we learned much of what we know about unborn children today
Although Narayanan frowns on pro-lifers using information to show the individual humanity of the unborn child, that’s clearly where the science points. Read More ›
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Group of neanderthal people walking by river ,

Did the Wily Neanderthal Save Time While Preparing Meals?

An enterprising archaeology team tried cooking birds using methods only available to Neanderthals — and learned some things, including how to avoid burned fingers
The separateness and intellectual inferiority of Neanderthal man was at one time constantly emphasized but the evidence doesn’t support it. Read More ›
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Creative brain stimulation concept. Half a human brain with half a coffee bean on a blue background.

Do We Need the Right Half of the Human Brain?

Generally, we do. Yet what happened when one woman lost the right half of her brain as an adult was unexpected

A little-reported 2021 case study published in Neurology Clinical Practice shows how resilient the human brain can be. A 29-year-old woman, CB, with no neurological or psychiatric history had a stroke, possibly due to medication issues. The damage was serious enough that a decision was made, with her consent, to remove almost all of the right side of her brain (hemispherectomy). As the study authors put it, “only a small disconnected right occipital pole was retained.” What impact would that have on her mind? The right hemisphere of the brain is thought by neuroscientists to play a specific role in “nonverbal” cognitive abilities. From Simply Psychology, we learn, Left hemisphere function The left hemisphere controls the right-hand side of the Read More ›

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Comatose male patient in hospital.

Heart attack doctor asks, is death now reversible?

If new findings in resuscitation techniques hold up, says Sam Parnia in his new book, brain conditions now deemed irreversible may be reversible

Resuscitation specialist Sam Parnia, reflects in his new book, Lucid Dying (Hachette, August 6, 2024), on the recent discovery that brains can be resuscitated hours after death. From the sample pages offered at the book’s Amazon site, we learn that in 2019, a writer at prominent science journal Nature sent Parnia a copy of the embargoed results of a study of pig brains from a slaughterhouse, kept alive for hours after death. “I was left totally stunned and speechless” he recounts: For at least a decade, I had tried to draw attention to the fact that our concept of life and death should be redefined. Death should no longer be viewed as a specific black-and-white moment. Instead, it should be Read More ›

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The Threshold of Near-Death Experience, Between Two Worlds

Heart Attack Doctor: Science Shows That Death Is Not the End

Sam Parnia began by wondering how brain cells can give rise to thoughts. He came to see that the message “from science” was not what he had been led to expect
Parnia concludes that science suggests, at a minimum, that our consciousness and selfhood “are not annihilated when we cross over into death.” Read More ›
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My best friend Pepper

Tech Hype Watch: Do Chatbots Really Understand Things?

Well-known author Robert Wright believes they do but he misunderstands how computers work
There is no way to build a computer that does not rely on 1’s and 0’s (computation), so computers that understand meaning are not possible. Read More ›
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AI robot profile, Section showing the brain and internal working system, AI generated.

Science Writer: No Way To Tell If AI Is Conscious

Absent a definition of consciousness, it might not be possible to prove extravagant claims wrong
The difficulty of defining consciousness could very well be one of the reasons why tech moguls can get away with extravagant claims about conscious AI. Read More ›
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Neural landscape with densely packed neurons, selective focus on a synapse releasing neurotransmitters, vibrant blue and white colors, high-resolution digital illustration

Is Panpsychism Putting Francis Crick’s Pack of Neurons to Flight?

Science writer John Horgan remembers Crick in the ‘90s when reductionism was riding high in neuroscience. What’s happened since?
As the years wear on, consciousness will likely remain irreducible and the neuroscientists may end up having to address plausible claims for dualism soon too. Read More ›
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Empty cave looking out

Can We Really Study the Minds of Ancient Humans?

The design inference helps sort things out in human paleontology
It’s progress, perhaps, that researchers are defending the role of parsimonious inference. It’s possible to see too much in scattered beads — or too little. Read More ›
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Colorful wooden puzzle brain model. Neurodiversity concept, human mind complexity. Creativity, brainstorming and emotional intelligence.

Neuroscientist: The Mind Is Just the Brain

He cites studies using transcranial magnetic stimulation, which caused subjects to see flashing lights
The fatal flaw in identity theory, as his view is called, is that there is no point of contact between the laws of logic and those of electrochemistry. Read More ›
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AI generated view of the multiverse

What Is Pseudoscience? A Philosopher Tries To Sort It Out

Finding little to go on, Massimo Pigliucci suggests relying on popular skeptic sites and, er, … himself
Speaking of Skeptical Inquirers, perhaps we should be much more skeptical of the very concept of pseudoscience, at least as it plays out. Read More ›
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Crashing Ocean Wave with view inside the wave

New Podcast Asks, Is the World Really Enchanted—or Disenchanted?

At Created Souls and The Banquet of Souls, I want to explore the fact that human consciousness is not about to be made obsolete by AI or explained away by neuroscience
The tide is turning. The idea that science will soon explain away human consciousness is ceasing to be a live discussion. Let’s hear the new discussions! Read More ›
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humanoid AI robot assists old senior woman in her household. serving drink and food, replacing human caregiver

Why AI Will Not and Cannot Think Our Thoughts

How can a robot ever have a spiritual vision of reality? How can it even be emotional?
Could an android at a child's funeral read the mourners' thoughts and emotions? Or would it view the death as a mere rearrangement of atoms in a wooden box? Read More ›