CategoryPsychology
Dembski: Does the Squawk Around AI Sound Like the Tower of Babel?
Well then, maybe that’s just what it is, he argues, in a new series of short essays
New Studies Point to Ways We Might Reduce the Effects of Dementia
Can There Really Be an Ultimate Happiness Machine?
Technology can do so much. Can it really provide an answer to the eternal human quest for happiness?
Psychology Researchers: AI Showed Imitation, Not Innovation
Testing children and adults against chatbots, the researchers found that the chatbots could match things up but struggled to solve problems on their own
Do Scientists Need to Learn to Lie More Believably?
As public trust in science diminishes, one serious proposal that scientists should manipulate our beliefs for our own good
The Free Will Debate Really Heated Up This Year
Many commentators are weighing in; surprisingly, perhaps, well-known materialists are disputing the claim that there is no free will
Exopsychology: The Psychology of No One We Ever Knew
The academic attempt to establish a psychology of alien intelligences — for whose existence we have no evidence — tells us something about ourselves
The Left and Right Brain Both Want Pop Science Media to Chill
Neuroscience is not an especially rewarding field for the pursuit of dogma
Does Deep Social Change Underlie the War on Math?
Why is the universal language of science sinking under the weight of claims about trauma and privilege?
When You Sync With Someone, Your Brains Wave Together
Neuroscientists have found that co-operation results in brain wave synchronyAt Scientific American, Lydia Denworth brought up an interesting topic earlier this month: The way that brain waves synchronize between two people who are communicating successfully: Neurons in corresponding locations of the different brains fire at the same time, creating matching patterns, like dancers moving together. Auditory and visual areas respond to shape, sound and movement in similar ways, whereas higher-order brain areas seem to behave similarly during more challenging tasks such as making meaning out of something seen or heard. The experience of “being on the same wavelength” as another person is real, and it is visible in the activity of the brain.” – Lydia Denworth, “Brain Waves Synchronize when People Interact,” Scientific American, July 1, 2023 For example, Read More ›
That “Mirror Image” Myth About Identical Twins… What Happened?
Researcher of identical twins hoped to prove that Genes Rule! But there were ethics slippages along the wayFor some decades, we heard claims from studies of identical twins (formed when one fertilized egg splits) that everything from exam results to homosexuality might hinge on genetics. Therefore, any similarity in later choices or behavior might be due to genetic factors (read “predetermined” or “inevitable” here). How has that assumption held up, especially in the age of genome mapping? Identical twins comprise roughly 1 in every 250 births. Studies of twins who were separated at birth, have been especially prized because the twins were assumed to grow up in different environments. Thus any significant similarities pointed to genetic influences. Several problems emerged though. For one thing, what about the assumption that separation at birth means that twins experience different Read More ›
The “Conscious Machine” Is Just Real Enough to Scare People
The ancient Greek hunk Narcissus could tell us about the risks — if he hadn’t been turned into a daffodil…Theologian and philosopher David Bentley Hart turns to an ancient folk tale to explain the danger of coming to believe that artificial intelligence is real human intelligence. Narcissus, as he tells us, was a young Greek hunter who fell in love with his own reflection in still water. He was entranced by the image but frustrated by the fact that it never did anything he didn’t do himself. He pined away and was eventually transformed into a flower — still called narcissus today. His name also found its way into psychology as a term for extreme self-absorption, narcissism. And that’s where Dr. Hart fears that an attraction to AI products as “machine selves” is taking us. While we’ve always been Read More ›
Free Will: What Are the Real Reasons to Believe in It?
Some say that free will might be a useful delusion but neuroscience provides sound reasons to believe that it is real.University of Missouri psychology professor Kennon Sheldon’s message is neatly summed up in an opening statement: “Regardless of whether humans do or don’t have free will, psychological research shows it’s beneficial to act as if you do”. The author of Freely Determined: What the New Psychology of the Self Teaches Us About How to Live (Basic Books, 2022) responds to philosophers who say that we do not have free will: All my life, I’ve struggled with the question of whether humans have ‘free will’. It catalysed my decision to become a psychologist and continues to inspire my research to this day, especially as it relates to the kinds of goals people set for themselves, and the effects of goal-striving on Read More ›
Look Out! The “Reptilian Brain” Is Still Here!
Many psychology students are subjected to this day to an exploded pop neuroscience myth endorsed by celebrity scientist Carl SaganDo we have a three-part brain — reptilian, mammalian, and human? Curiously, psychology textbooks teach us that we do and neuroscience studies teach us that we don’t. Who to believe? And how did that happen anyway? In the 1960s, Yale University physiologist and psychiatrist Paul D. MacLean (1913–2007) offered the triune brain theory. On that view, the reptilian brain (brain stem) controls things like movement and breathing; the mammalian brain controls emotion (limbic system); and the human cerebral cortex controls language and reasoning (neocortex). That might have been just another theory except that it was widely promoted by celebrity astronomer Carl Sagan (1934–1996) in his book, The Dragons of Eden (Random House, 1977). Praised in The Atlantic as “a rational, Read More ›
Sparks and Flashes of Remembrance
An expert in memory-loss treatment recalls some tender stories about memory in the midst of forgetfulnessIn a recent Mind Matters podcast episode, neurosurgeon Michael Egnor (Mike), a frequent contributor to the site, interviewed friend and colleague Stephen Post, an expert in memory-loss-related disorders. Here’s a snippet of their conversation, which you can enjoy in full by following this link. Mike Egnor: So to begin, your new book, Dignity for Deeply Forgetful People, why did you use that title and what do you mean by deeply forgetful people? Stephen Post: Well, that’s a fabulous question to begin with because the title doesn’t quite say it all, but it’s close. I’ve been working with deeply forgetful people and their caregivers since I went out to Case Medical School in 1988, and I have never felt comfortable with Read More ›
When It’s Not Clear If a Disorder Is From the Brain or the Mind…
Neurologist Andrew Knox explains to Robert J. Marks that some psychological problems appear as if they were brain problems — yet there’s nothing wrong with the brainIn the podcast released last Thursday, Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks interviewed pediatric neurologist Dr. Andrew Knox from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health on “Ways the brain can break” (#220, January 5, 2023). What follows is Part 4 of the discussion, “When it’s not clear if a disorder is from the brain or the mind…” Here are Part 1: How our brains are — and aren’t — like computers, Part 2: What is happening when children have strokes or dementia signs?, and Part 3: How do strokes, dementia offer insight into how the brain works? https://mindmatters.ai/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/12/Mind-Matters-220-Andrew-Knox-Episode-1.mp3 This portion begins at roughly 25:15 min. A partial transcript and notes, and Additional Resources follow. Epileptic Read More ›
Let’s Call AI What It Really Is: Faux Intelligence
Gary Smith at Salon: While GPT-3 can string words together in convincing ways, it has no idea what the words meanPomona College business and investments prof Gary Smith warns Salon readers not to be too gullible about what human-sounding chatbots really amount to. He notes that in the 1960s, a pioneer chatbot called ELIZA convinced many psychiatric patients that they were interacting with a real psychiatrist. The machine simply repeated back their statements as questions, a popular psychiatric technique at the time because it generated more and more discussion — from the patient. The patients’ belief that they were interacting with a human being came to be called the Eliza effect. Has much changed? If you play around with GPT-3 (and I encourage you to do so) your initial response is likely to be astonishment — a full-blown Eliza effect. Read More ›
Is Depression an Altered Global State of Consciousness?
Cecily Whiteley and Jonathan Birch from the London School of Economics and Political Science argue that altered consciousness prevents depressed people from just "seeing the bright side"PhD student Cecily Whiteley and philosophy prof Jonathan Birch, both of the London School of Economics and Political Science, think that depression is often misunderstood. In this 2021 article, noted again at Psyche, they point out that it is not just “feeling low”; it is an altered form of consciousness: The psychologist Andrew Solomon hints at some of these transformations in his memoir The Noonday Demon (2001): “When you are depressed, the past and future are absorbed entirely by the present moment, as in the world of a three-year-old. You cannot remember a time when you felt better, at least not clearly; and you certainly cannot imagine a future time when you will feel better. Being upset, even profoundly upset, Read More ›
When Scholars Simply Don’t Want To Believe Something Obvious…
… they are very good at developing clever arguments to avoid seeing itThis article was originally published in Salvo 62 (Fall 2022) under the title “The Whitewashing.” In Hitler’s Ethic: The Nazi Pursuit of Evolutionary Progress (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), University of California historian Richard Weikart demonstrated painstakingly that the Nazis had developed an ethic based largely on applying Darwinian evolution principles to government. Scholars have since tried hard to obscure the connection, most likely because they believe in Darwinism and see it as science. Any suggestion that the Nazis were avid Darwinists too is unseemly and must be refuted by any and all means. With racism very much in current news, Weikart has focusing in Darwinian Racism: How Darwinism Influenced Hitler, Nazism, and White Nationalism (Discovery Institute Press, 2022) on the way Read More ›