On this episode of Mind Matters News, guest host Pat Flynn concludes a conversation with Dr. Winston Ewert about his contribution to the recent volume Minding the Brain. This segment explores the implications of the view that human cognition can be reduced to a sophisticated algorithm, as Ewert argues. Ewert contends that an algorithm can only construct an algorithm less sophisticated than itself, based on the limitations of the halting problem in computer science. This poses challenges for views like the “singularity” hypothesis that predict exponentially increasing artificial intelligence. Ewert’s argument suggests there are limits to how intelligent an artificial intelligence can become, and that something beyond an algorithm must be responsible for creating human-level intelligence. This is Part 2 of a two-part conversation.

Additional Resources

• Minding the Brain: Models of the Mind, Information, and Empirical Science
• Listen to Part 1 of this conversation: Dr. Winston Ewert: The Human Mind’s Sophisticated Algorithm And Its Implications