Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

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all-religions-temple-in-kazan-russia-stockpack-adobe-stock
All Religions Temple in Kazan, Russia
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post
Author
News
Date
May 15, 2022
Categorized
Philosophy of Mind, Religion
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What Do Christianity and Hinduism Have in Common?

And where do they differ?
News
May 15, 2022
Philosophy of Mind, Religion

At Theology Unleashed, neurosurgeon Michael Egnor and Hindu philosopher and broadcaster Akhandadhi Das discuss the similarities and differences between Thomistic philosophy and Vedanta Philosophy. Thomistic philosophy is the philosophy originally developed by Thomas Aquinas (1225– 1274), adapting the approach taken by early philosopher of science Aristotle (384– 322 BC) to the Christian worldview of the High Middle Ages. His work is of enduring significance in philosophy. Vedanta is “one of the world’s most ancient spiritual philosophies and one of its broadest, based on the Vedas, the sacred scriptures of India. It is the philosophical foundation of Hinduism… Vedanta affirms: The oneness of existence, The divinity of the soul, and The harmony of all religions.” – Vedanta Society of Southern California…

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Human fetus on scientific background
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post
Author
Michael Egnor
Date
May 15, 2022
Categorized
Ethics, Philosophy of Mind
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Must We Be Able To Reason To Be Thought Of As Human Persons?

A common argument as to why abortion is generally ethical is that the unborn child cannot reason
Michael Egnor
May 15, 2022
Ethics, Philosophy of Mind

Perhaps the most common justification that abortion proponents give for supporting abortion is that the human embryo or fetus isn’t capable of rational thought — and rational thought is the defining characteristic of humanity. They’re wrong in a fundamental way. How they’re wrong is best understood if we look at the metaphysics of human development. Metaphysics is “The branch of philosophy that examines the nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, substance and attribute, fact and value.” (American Heritage Dictionary) The ancient philosopher Aristotle (384–322 BC), who provided an important foundation for science, pointed out that humans are rational animals. That is, we have at least the possibility of rational thought, although at some stages of life…

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Strichcode
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post
Author
News
Date
May 12, 2022
Categorized
Business and Finance, Surveillance
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What You Need To Know About Surveillance Capitalism

A Harvard professor coined the term and her 2019 book sounds a warning about how Google and Facebook gain power and wealth selling YOU
News
May 12, 2022
Business and Finance, Surveillance

The term “surveillance capitalism” was coined by Harvard professor Shoshana Zuboff in her book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. It’s a fascinating read, offering insight into the power that companies like Google and Facebook have amassed and the danger that power poses to our way of life. Here’s how she explained it to the United Kingdom’s Channel 4 News in 2019: Here’s how surveillance capitalism works, just in brief. It begins with these companies claiming, unilaterally claiming, our private human experience as their free source of raw material. So what do they do with that raw material? They lift out of it the rich predictive signals in our…

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Unicorn Landscape
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post
Author
Jeffrey Funk
Date
May 10, 2022
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance
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How Far Will Unicorn Share Prices Fall?

Cumulative losses give us some insights
Jeffrey Funk
May 10, 2022
Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance

Most investors know that America’s Unicorns are losing money. What they don’t know is that most Unicorns have dug big holes for themselves and aren’t sure how to dig themselves out. What do I mean by holes? I mean massive cumulative losses that have been accumulated over many years of yearly losses. Because many of today’s Unicorn startups were founded at least 10 years ago, and are still unprofitable, they have a had a long time to create huge cumulative losses, some much more than the $3 billion that Amazon once had. The biggest losses are for Uber ($29.1 billion), WeWork ($12.2 billion), Snap ($8.7 billion), Lyft ($8.5 billion), Teledoc Health ($8.1 billion), and Airbnb ($6.4 billion), followed by four…

Stethoscope on computer with test results in Doctor consulting room background and report chart for medical costs in modern hospital on Laptop desk. Healthcare costs business and fees concept.
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post
Author
Stephen Berger
Date
May 10, 2022
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Medicine and Health, Work
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Would Health Care AI Mean Caregivers Spend More Time on Patients?

Chances are, it will just mean fewer and less qualified caregivers
Stephen Berger
May 10, 2022
Artificial Intelligence, Medicine and Health, Work

Pat Baird, regulatory head of global software standards at Philips, recently wrote an article titled, “Can Artificial Intelligence ‘Rehumanize’ Healthcare?” His thesis is that “By lowering administrative burden, AI can increase caregivers’ time spent actually caring for patients.” I will argue that this vision for the contribution of AI to healthcare delivery will not happen due to some very observable forces. A place to begin the analysis is with the funding source for AI in healthcare. AI is bought or developed by healthcare delivery organizations. These organizations are following a business plan and if AI does not provide a business benefit, they will not pay for it. We can conclude that AI in healthcare will be designed and used to…

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Window Rain Water Drops Stormy Weather
Type
post
Author
Gary Varner
Date
May 7, 2022
Categorized
Arts & Culture, Ethics
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Firefly Episode 13: If You Are Stuck at Home in a Rainstorm…

Otherwise, you may just want to skip this one. But let me explain why
Gary Varner
May 7, 2022
Arts & Culture, Ethics

You may remember the classic Western, Unforgiven (1992) directed by and starring Clint Eastwood. It’s the sad tale of a lonely farmer who had recently lost his wife. He was, at one point, a cold-hearted gunman. He decides to take one final job, adopting his dark earlier persona for the last time so he can provide a better life for his kids. His job is to kill a local sheriff who has been harassing prostitutes in a small Western town. It’s a story with no real good guys that leaves us with the infamous line, “We all have it coming.” I think this episode of Firefly tried to emulate the Western. But it does a terrible job. Before discussing the…

inflation-dollar-hyperinflation-with-black-background-one-dollar-bill-is-sprayed-in-the-hand-of-a-man-on-a-black-background-the-concept-of-decreasing-purchasing-power-inflation-stockpack-adobe-stock
Inflation, dollar hyperinflation with black background. One dollar bill is sprayed in the hand of a man on a black background. The concept of decreasing purchasing power, inflation.
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post
Author
Gary Smith
Date
May 3, 2022
Categorized
Economics
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Will Higher Prices Disarm Russia? It’s Complicated…

The effects of hyperinflation are subtle, but very real
Gary Smith
May 3, 2022
Economics

The annual rate of consumer price inflation in Russia was 9% in February and 17% in March. For producer prices, the March number was 27%. Is Russia headed for hyperinflation, with prices increasing at triple-digit rates or more? I don’t know, but it is worth remembering what happens during hyperinflations. Many people believe that higher prices make everyone worse off. This is not true. Buyers pay more, but sellers receive more. One person’s higher price is another’s higher income. If all prices and incomes were to increase by the same amount — say 10 percent — everyone’s real, inflation-adjusted income would be unchanged. The true costs of inflation are more subtle. In practice, within every inflation, some prices increase more…

cloud-in-woman-hands-on-blue-sky-stockpack-adobe-stock
Cloud in woman hands on blue sky
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post
Author
Jonathan Bartlett
Date
May 2, 2022
Categorized
Programming
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Arm in the Cloud?: Lower Cost and Higher Performance

A quick tutorial on why Arm technology has 90% of the cell phone market
Jonathan Bartlett
May 2, 2022
Programming

Central processing units (CPUs) are usually classified according to their architecture. Historically, desktop computers (especially non-Apple computers) were almost entirely based on Intel’s x86 32-bit architecture, with more recent ones supporting AMD’s 64-bit extensions for more modern computers. The x86 architecture has never ruled because it was a great architecture for the future, but merely because of compatibility — essentially, if you write software to one architecture, it won’t run on another one. The one company that pushed more aggressively for new architectures was Apple, which switched its Macintosh operating system through four major CPU architectures: Motorola 68k, PowerPC, Intel x86, and now Arm. Not only that, their earlier Apple II series ran yet another CPU architecture—the 6502. Because Apple…

eurpean-siblings-brother-and-sister-quarelling-stockpack-adobe-stock
eurpean siblings brother and sister quarelling
Type
post
Author
J.R. Miller
Date
May 2, 2022
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Ethics
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Why AI Can’t Save Us From Ourselves — If Evolution Is Any Guide

Famous evolutionary theorist E. O. Wilson’s reflections help us understand
J.R. Miller
May 2, 2022
Artificial Intelligence, Ethics

The late E. O. Wilson (1929–2021) received more than one hundred awards for his research and writing, including two Pulitzer Prizes. As a professor at Harvard University, Wilson influenced generations with his ideas about human evolution and ethics. In his 2012 New York Times essay “Evolution and Our Inner Conflict,” Wilson asked two key question regarding the problem of evil in our world: Are human beings intrinsically good but corruptible by the forces of evil, or the reverse, innately sinful yet redeemable by the forces of good? Are we built to pledge our lives to a group, even to the risk of death, or the opposite, built to place ourselves and our families above all else? Wilson believed that humans…

Chatbot / Social Bot mit Quellcode im Hintergrund
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post
Author
Eric Holloway
Date
April 23, 2022
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence
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AI Companies Are Massively Faking the Loophole in the Turing Test

I propose the Turing Test be further strengthened by presuming a chatbot is human until proven otherwise
Eric Holloway
April 23, 2022
Artificial Intelligence

Computer pioneer Alan Turing was posed the question, how do we know if an AI has human like intelligence? He offered his famous Turing test: If human judges cannot differentiate the AI from a human, then it has human-like intelligence. His test has spawned a number of competitions in which participants try to fool judges into thinking that a chatbot is really a human. One of the best-known chatbots was Eugene Goostman, which fooled the judges into thinking it was a 13-year-old boy — mostly by indirection and other distraction techniques to avoid the sort of in-depth questioning that shows that a chatbot lacks understanding. However, there is a loophole in this test. Can you spot the loophole? What better…

visualization-of-virtual-world-stockpack-adobe-stock
Visualization of Virtual World
Type
post
Author
Eric Holloway
Date
April 11, 2022
Categorized
Information Theory
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Does Information Weigh Something After All? What If It Does?

At the rate we create information today, one physicist computes that in 350 years, the energy will outweigh the atoms of Earth
Eric Holloway
April 11, 2022
Information Theory

In the 1960s, IBM researcher Rolf Landauer (1927–1999) observed that if the logical information in a computational system decreased, then the physical entropy in the system must increase (Landauer’s Principle). This conclusion follows from the principle that the entropy in a closed system can never decrease. A decrease in the logical information corresponds to a decrease in entropy. And factoring in the principle that the entropy cannot actually decrease, the physical system itself must increase in entropy when the information decreases. This increase in entropy will result in the emission of heat, and a reduction of energy in the system. Now Melvin Vopson, a physicist at the University of Portsmouth, has taken Landauer’s principle to the next logical step. He…

propane tanks
Gas cylinders used welding Industrial in factory
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post
Author
News
Date
April 11, 2022
Categorized
Computer Security
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Cybersecurity: Put a Lid on the Risks. We Already Own the Lid

Security specialist David Kruger says, data must be contained when it is in storage and transit and controlled when it is in use
News
April 11, 2022
Computer Security

Veteran software developer David A. Kruger offered some thoughts on computer security recently at Expensivity and we appreciate the opportunity to republish them here as a series. Last week’s discussion focused on the ingredients that cybersecurity needs to work. Today, the focus is on putting a lid on risks. Put a Lid on It Fortunately, we have at our disposal untold millions of man hours of safety engineering focused on safely extracting benefits from the use of hazardous things. For example, our homes and the highways we travel on are chock full of beneficial things that can easily kill us, such as high voltage electricity, flammable/explosive natural gas, and tanker trucks filled with flammable or toxic chemicals driving right next…

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Woman fist with woke written. Woke concept refers to awareness of social and racial justice, concern, vigilance, activism.
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post
Author
News
Date
April 10, 2022
Categorized
Ethics, Philosophy, Relationships, Religion
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A Catholic and a Hindu Tackle Woke culture

In a wide-ranging discussion, Michael Egnor and Arjuna Gallagher look at Woke culture, abortion, euthanasia, and microaggressions
News
April 10, 2022
Ethics, Philosophy, Relationships, Religion

In a recent series of Mind Matters News, podcasts, neurosurgeon Michael Egnor interviewed Arjuna Gallagher, a Hindu who lives in New Zealand. The first podcast looked at what the world’s 1.2 billion Hindus generally think about the mind and the second explored the Hindu view of free will and evil. The third podcast addressed the question, “What do Hindus think about the Big Bang?” Now, the fourth and final podcast asks, what do Hindus think of current science and culture issues, especially the flowering of Woke Cancel Culture, abortion, and euthanasia? Gallagher hosts a YouTube channel called Theology Unleashed, which has featured many guests discussing the spiritual dimension of our lives — for example, philosopher David Bentley Hart and neuroscientist…

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炎に包まれた壊れかけのハート
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post
Author
Gary Varner
Date
April 9, 2022
Categorized
Arts & Culture, Relationships
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Firefly Episode 10: Jealousy Divides the Firefly Crew in Space

And yet jealousy plays a key role in saving Mal and Wash from a villain’s sadistic torture
Gary Varner
April 9, 2022
Arts & Culture, Relationships

Episode 9 marks a turning point for the series. The previous episodes have been somewhat hit and miss but so far, there’s only been one outright bad episode (Episode 5, which broke all the “rules” of consistent character). However, at best thus far, the series has been very… episodic. That is, a handful of the characters recurs but the events from the preceding episodes seem to have no effect on the upcoming ones. But with Episode 9, that changes. The transition from Episode 9 to 10 starts off on a promising note. We see the events of Episode 9 actually affecting the events of Episode 10. This is a trend that continues as the story builds to a crescendo. That…

cyber-security-and-extortion-stockpack-adobe-stock
Cyber security and extortion
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post
Author
News
Date
April 7, 2022
Categorized
Computer Security
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Ingredients That Cybersecurity Needs To Actually Work

Software makers continue to produce open data as if we were still living in the 50s, and the Internet had never been invented.
News
April 7, 2022
Computer Security

Veteran software developer David A. Kruger offered some thoughts on computer security recently at Expensivity and we appreciate the opportunity to republish them here as a series. Yesterday’s discussion made the point that the hacker’s target isn’t networks, computers, or users; they are just pathways to the target —gaining control of data is the target. Today, we look at the ingredients that cybersecurity needs to work. Necessary Ingredients Data in this context is digitized information. Digital information is physical, as in, it’s governed by the laws of physics. Data is the result of software converting (digitizing) human usable information into patterns of ones and zeros that are applied to “quantum small” physical substrates: microscopic transistors, electrical pulses, light, radio waves,…

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Online Security Technology
Type
post
Author
News
Date
April 6, 2022
Categorized
Computer Security
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What’s Wrong With Cybersecurity Technology?

Know your enemy: The target isn’t networks, computers, or users; they are pathways to the target —gaining control of data
News
April 6, 2022
Computer Security

Veteran software developer David A. Kruger offered some thoughts on computer security recently at Expensivity and we appreciate the opportunity to republish them here. He starts with “Root Cause Analysis 101” Now we’ll apply the lessons learned in yesterday’s discussion to cybersecurity: Lesson Learned 1: A pattern of multiple types of recurring related failures indicates the presence of an unidentified root cause. In cybersecurity, is there a pattern of multiple types of recurring failures that appear to be related? Yes! A cybersecurity failure occurs whenever a cyberattacker gains control of data and then:  1) views or plays it, 2) steals copies of it, 3) ransoms it, 5) impedes its flow, 5) corrupts it, or 6) destroys it. The lesson learned is that the…

family-with-laptop-tablet-and-smartphone-everyone-using-digital-devices-stockpack-adobe-stock
Family with laptop, tablet and smartphone, everyone using digital devices
Type
post
Author
Andrew McDiarmid
Date
April 6, 2022
Categorized
Arts & Culture, Relationships
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Escaping the “Truman Show” of Our Times

Effective methods intentionally hook us in, keep us engaged, and encourage behaviors that benefit them — and are often damaging for us
Andrew McDiarmid
April 6, 2022
Arts & Culture, Relationships

This story originally appeared at Newsmax. (April 5, 2022) as “Time to Write Our Own Stories, Not Big Tech” and is reprinted with permission. It’s one of the best movies of the late 1990s. In The Truman Show, Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) has no idea his life is actually a popular TV show. Everything has been fabricated — his parents, his friends, his marriage, his job. But things start happening — a studio light falls from the sky, a fake elevator reveals a hidden backstage room. Suddenly, Truman is determined to discover the truth of his existence. Rebelling against the script being played out all around him, he begins a journey to seek the truth and discover the life he was…

a-computer-popup-box-screen-warning-of-a-system-being-hacked-compromised-software-environment-3d-illustration-stockpack-adobe-stock
A computer popup box screen warning of a system being hacked, compromised software environment. 3D illustration.
Type
post
Author
News
Date
April 5, 2022
Categorized
Business and Finance, Computer Security, Crime
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The True Cause of Cybersecurity Failure and How to Fix It

Hint: The cause and fix are not what you think
News
April 5, 2022
Business and Finance, Computer Security, Crime

Veteran software developer David A. Kruger offered some thoughts on computer security recently at Expensivity and we appreciate the opportunity to republish them here. He starts with “Root Cause Analysis 101” The classic line “I have a bad feeling about this” is repeated in every Star Wars movie. It’s become a meme for that uneasy feeling that as bad as things are now, they are about to get much worse. That’s an accurate portrayal of how many of us feel about cybersecurity. Our bad feeling has a sound empirical basis. Yearly cybersecurity losses and loss rates continually increase and never decrease despite annual US cybersecurity expenditures in the tens of billions of dollars and tens of millions of skilled cybersecurity…

we-studied-together-now-were-graduating-together-portrait-of-a-group-of-students-taking-selfies-on-graduation-day-stockpack-adobe-stock
We studied together now were graduating together. Portrait of a group of students taking selfies on graduation day.
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post
Author
News
Date
April 1, 2022
Categorized
Economics, Education
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Historically Black Colleges/Universities Crush School Rankings

According to a new metric that rewards per-dollar effectiveness as opposed to the benefits of lavish endowments, they took three spots out of the top five
News
April 1, 2022
Economics, Education

While popular rankings of colleges and universities — like that of U.S. News and World Report — have always been top secret, journalist Malcolm Gladwell, working with a team of Reed College researchers, managed to “crack the code.” And, as Academic Influence tells it, an unhappy truth emerged: What troubled Gladwell is that schools like Dillard University and Reed College could never, given the way college rankings were set up, receive the recognition they deserved. The whole ranking system was rigged against them. Gladwell focused especially on Dillard University, an HBCU [historically Black college or university] in New Orleans. By making its mission to serve underserved populations, Dillard was, in effect, getting penalized by U.S. News & World Report, which puts a premium in its…

empty-colored-carbonated-drink-bottles-plastic-waste-stockpack-adobe-stock
Empty colored carbonated drink bottles. Plastic waste
Type
post
Author
News
Date
March 29, 2022
Categorized
Economics, Environment
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Urban Mining: Turning Urban Waste Into Valuable Products

Renowned synthetic chemist Jim Tour shows how we can turn discarded plastics into graphene, a product useful in industry
News
March 29, 2022
Economics, Environment

There’s a gold mine, so to speak, in the garbage but it takes a gifted chemist to develop processes that turn the trash to valuable industrial materials. At COSM 2021, James Tour talked about his team’s work in developing such processes: The Nanotech Revolution: Our Zero-Waste Energy Future (November 11, 2021) Dr. Jim Tour, Professor of Chemistry at Rice University, gives a riveting tour of how waste products can be converted to graphene, an extremely valuable material with a host of useful applications—from medical applications to new strong and lightweight materials to an energy source for zero CO2 emissions. Tour and his team have developed methods for turning carbon waste into graphene, an allotrope of carbon that can be stacked…