Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

CategoryPhilosophy

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Retro styled image of old pocket watches

When Einstein Clashed With Philosopher Bergson Over Time

Bergson’s point, back in 1922, was that clocks, however accurate, don’t read themselves; they are interpreted by conscious beings
A recent experiment claimed to have identified negative time. If that’s true, solving one mystery in science opens up a vista of… more mysteries. Read More ›
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After Dawkins Is Canceled, What Comes Next? Not Better Science!

As the National Academies of Science try to blend traditional lore into science findings, the concept of truth that atheists and theists clash over is irrelevant
For many today, truth is whatever benefits Woke causes. Claims for truth that offer them no political benefit are seen as a threat, meriting a hostile response. Read More ›
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The confrontation of a heatwave and a melting glacier, symbolizing the collision of rising temperatures and shrinking ice masses. Concept of climate change impact on glaciers. Generative Ai.

New Atheism Is Shrinking and It’s Not Entirely Clear Why

Now, there is an eerie unfashionable silence that fashionable media are beginning to notice. For one thing, it is affecting Richard Dawkins
The Woke, it turns out, are no more tolerant of atheists than they are of anyone else with divergent views. That may be what finally fells new atheism. Read More ›
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Small orange flags places in grass in memory of the thousands of Indigenous children that died in Canada's residential school system. Wide view.

Canada’s Residential Schools: A Saga of Journalistic Wrongdoing

Even as the story is collapsing for lack of evidence, there is a move afoot to criminalize doubt about what happened (denialism).
Could it happen in the United States? Of course. It can happen anywhere where people are willing to ignore the demands of evidence in favor of private truth. Read More ›
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robot reading book and solving math data analytics, concept of future mathematics artificial intelligence

Is True Artificial Intelligence Possible? A Science Perspective

Many will conclude that true AI — AI that thinks like humans — must be possible because we hear so much about it from so many sources
Experiments like ARC–AGI have finally made true computer intelligence into a scientifically respectable theory, because AI can now be falsified. Read More ›
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a group of sheep on a pasture stand next to each other and look into the camera

Engineer Explains Why AI Bots Always Lean Left

ChatGPT kept insisting on scientific consensus as the most important factor in what to believe regarding global warming and similar issues
If AI systems such as ChatGPT cannot engage in conceptual thought, then they can only promote consensus, which is what we see. Read More ›
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Flower, Green, Plant

Haidt: Beauty and Awe Help Us Escape the Phone-Based Life

The question is: why are we drawn to beauty?
I want the beauty of the forest to actually be beautiful, not just signal a primordial drive to forage and hunt. Read More ›
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Dystopian metropolis. Film noir gothic style industrial architecture landscape image

If Materialism Is Failing, What Replaces It Might Not Be Better

If panpsychism prevails, we may need to get used to the politics of Insect Rights and of Rocks' Lives Matter. Also, panpsychists may have little of consequence to say about freedom of thought
The concern Michael Egnor expresses, that materialism, while barren, may be replaced by something worse, may be prescient, depending on how panpsychism unfolds. Read More ›
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DNA sequence. Generative AI

Biology Needs a Fresh Look — But Is It Afraid of What It’ll Find?

A science writer’s musings make clear that intelligent design is the only reasonable explanation for the human genome’s ordered complexity
But Philip Ball doesn’t want to go there and neither do most biologists — thus there are so many issues they just can’t raise. 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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The cells of the body are being attacked by bacteria. Generative AI.

Physicists: Perhaps Life Is a Unique State of Matter

A physics gathering next week at the University of Rochester will explore the significance of the fact that life, unlike non-life, needs and uses information
One question the physicists must eventually tackle is, can agency come into existence without an Agent? And how can meaning exist in a mindless universe? Read More ›
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plain blank Detailed DIC micrograph of a single-celled Phacus pleuronectes euglenid displaying its distinct striated pellicle, whip-like flagellum, eyespot, paramylon body, and chloroplasts

Dembski Asks the Chatbot: Is Intelligent Design Testable?

ChatGPT4o’s tour through the internet on the topic suggests that there may be some improvement in rational discussion out there
Many of the people who produce the material that the bot encounters desperately want to find ET and don’t want to find design. It still shows. 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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Red blue atom model over blurred blue and red

Bill Dembski: Einstein’s Advice to Bright Young University Grads

His advice, bellowed in parting, may seem obvious but it is challenging in a world that often protects sacred cows over evidence
Sacred cows inhibit thinking because they have no straightforward relationship with the discipline in which they find pasture. Read More ›
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Data analysis science and big data with AI technology. Analyst or Scientist uses a computer and dashboard for analysis of information on complex data sets on computer. Insights development engineer

Can AI Replace Science? Gary Smith and Jeffrey Funk Say No

At Fast Company, they explain some of the real problems with mistaking hype for results
The everyday reality is more like this: AI speeds up many tedious processes but doesn’t replace creative thinking. Read More ›
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Biology Manual

Wanted: A Theory of Everything Based Only on Science Findings

The philosopher who expressed that wish is probably still looking… he could not find a naturalist theory that worked that way
When science media sound like naturalist (materialist) sermons, that’s what they are. And that is a philosophical choice, not a necessity. Read More ›
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Thoughtful man sitting down.

Roger Scruton on AI and the Human Soul

Is something missing in the discussion on AI and human exceptionalism? Back in the 1980s, Roger Scruton thought so
Will we start to regard each other as little more than complicated data centers if we lose the concept of the soul entirely? Read More ›
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Tabby mackerel  Cat. Curious cute male cat playing in the garden

How Do We Know If Something in Nature Is Purposeful?

Jonathan Bartlett considered the question recently in Cambridge’s Behavioral and Brain Sciences journal
Some biologists argue that purpose in nature is only “apparent” but, as Bartlett notes, there are philosophical and evidence problems with that approach. Read More ›
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Global computer network communication, internet business and marketing concept, blue transparent Earth globe on laptop keyboard macro view

How Ancient Philosophers Can Help Design Better Computers

The Kubernetes program, for example, steers groups of computers the way, in the ancient image, a navigator steers a ship
The program works a bit like our minds, creating information in the world around us by constant comparison, bringing order out of disorder. Read More ›
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Man hand using digital chatbot for provide access to information and data in online network.Artificial intelligence.

But Can Chatbot Claude Keep Its Promise To Reform?

What will happen, after all of Grasso’s careful work, when a different user asks for arguments in favor of intelligent design?
Grasso showed that reform can happen but perhaps it comes down to a question of numbers. Who wants thoughtful discussion vs. new atheist blog rants? Read More ›