Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

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Businessman analyzing data with a touch screen

Defending a Patent: Lessons from Tech Entrepreneur Hal Philipp

In Part 2 of a 3-part interview, Philipp — inventor of the modern touchscreen — tells Robert J. Marks and Bradley Norris about his struggles with Apple

When we swipe a phone or tap a touchscreen, few of us realize how much engineering — and legal grit — underlies that simple gesture. In an interview with Mind Matters podcasting, inventor Hal Philipp traces the path from lone tinkerer to successful founder, and finally to weary veteran of patent warfare. Philipp, a key inventor behind modern capacitive sensing and touchscreens, delivers a sober message for innovators: invention is only half the battle; defending your invention can define your company’s fate. From Single-Point Touch to a Full Touchscreen Philipp’s early work focused on single-channel capacitive sensors — one-button touch or proximity detection. The breakthrough came when he generalized the idea into linear touch sliders and then into a circular Read More ›

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A car parked on the side of the road, an empty red canister. The driver is on the road. Help on the road. Fuel shortage - oil, diesel, gasoline.

Is the Materialist Juggernaut Running Out of Fuel?

A recent thinkmag essay prompts a thought: can intellectuals still take materialism seriously?

Life would be so much easier for thinkmags if the mind were simply what the brain does. But wait. No one would produce thinkmags either.

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Wren Bird Closeup

Part 3: A Wren Arrives — and Ruffles Many a Feather

Dr. Wren, a cognitive scientist, identifies a problem with assuming that adding another ten thousand pigeons to the project will produce novel designs...

We remain confronted by the same old mystery: who, or what, imagines the birdhouse in the first place?

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robot writing in book for large language model and artificial intelligence chatbot concept

Students Beware: AI Copilot Admits Errors But Won’t Correct Them

Parents and teachers must beware when students treat AI research as accurate; I myself was misled while writing this article!

But here’s the punchline: I was wrong on an important point and Copilot let me stay wrong!

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Glowing light bulb stands out. Photo generative AI.

Cold Calls to Touchscreens: Hal Philipp’s Entrepreneurial Journey

Philipp’s remarkable story illustrates seven core entrepreneurial principles

His business grew — not from grand design — but from a series of smart, well-timed responses to opportunity.

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Abstract concept illustration from 3D rendering of a golden female head sculpture cut divided showing black interior halves and isolated on grey background.

Conundrum: Split Human Brain But Unified Perception

1500 papers later, current research suggests that a non-materialist approach to the neuroscience of the human mind is quite viable

Researcher Yair Pinto summed it up: In split-brain, patients, perception is split, but consciousness is unified.

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Android robot navigating through a cyber digital world, pointing its finger towards a glowing computer coding interface.luminous glow of digital technology, an android engages in the art of computer.

AI Is a Long Way From Replacing Software Coders

Despite C-suite claims, they are not likely to take our jobs any time soon because they do not understand what words mean and how words relate to the physical world

LLMs excel at simple coding tasks but are still too unreliable to use without extensive human supervision on complex tasks where mistakes are expensive.

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Baseball players in action on the stadium.

Monday Micro Softy 38: A Pitcher’s Lament

How can Lefty Wright be the winning pitcher in an exciting game without throwing a single pitch?

Micro Softy 37 is easier to guess if you think about what the two teams have in common that might change the opening ceremonies somewhat…

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Pigeon business portrait dressed as a manager or ceo in a formal office business suit with glasses and tie. Ai generated

Move Over, AI. Bird Brains Are Giving You a Run for Your Money

Could ten thousand birds develop a theory of mind just by scaling? A tale in three parts

Dr. Avian was sure that he had found a formula for intelligence without anything like a human mind, and his program appeared to be working.

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Ability.

Does the Mind Have a Specific Location in the Brain?

A rabbi asks neurosurgeon Michael Egnor how consciousness can exist without a place in the brain

The conventional assumption today is that consciousness has a material source. Yet no one has found a place where it lives in the brain.

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Detective board with crime scene photos, stickers, clues and red thread, closeup

AI’s Not “The Answer” In Our World of Mysteries, Not Puzzles

A focus on AI encourages us to see problems that are really mysteries as puzzles, which makes addressing them much harder

Humans are terrible at crunching data but remarkably good at seeing clues. That’s why we still outmatch our machines in domains where meaning matters.

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Education, kid learning and training with AI, knowledge and technology concept. Robot hologram in graduation hat showing while child using digital tablet with finger touch on screen, homework school.

AI in Education: Is the System Being Gamed — or the Student?

AI makes it easier to game the system, but many users are also being gamed

Users, whose output is used to train the AI systems, will pay higher electricity costs on account of them while experts eventually earn top salaries.

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White chatbot robot leading robots group on dark bluish reddish background 3D rendering

An Evil Chatbot Clones Itself… Sci-fi or Real Life Threat?

ChatGPT was asked to explain how this might be done. The results were revealing

It’s not impossible but, given technical issues and security protocols, it is much more difficult than the chatbot’s database seemed to be informed about.

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Two Scientists in the Brain Research Laboratory work on a Project, Using Personal Computer with MRI Scans Show Brain Anomalies. Neuroscientists at Work.
Two Scientists in the Brain Research Laboratory work on a Project, Using Personal Computer with MRI Scans Show Brain Anomalies. Neuroscientists at Work.

Can Faith and Neuroscience Align? Yes, Says Science Writer

If both faith and neuroscience are honestly seeking the truth, says Denyse O’Leary, they will find much that is mutually supportive

That is the key message behind the new book, The Immortal Mind (2025), of which she is neurosurgeon Michael Egnor’s co-author.

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Brain psychology mind soul and hope concept art, 3d illustration, surreal artwork, imagination painting, conceptual idea

Podcast: Neurosurgeon Michael Egnor Reads From The Immortal Mind

He followed the evidence and came to see that the human mind has a spiritual and immortal dimension

About existential questions, he says, “I no longer settled for the stock answers that many scientists, like me, had naively accepted for so long.”

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Butterfly effect illustration with a butterfly and tornado.

Sound of Thunder: Can Chance and the Butterfly Effect Coexist?

In Part 5 of my review of the sci-fi classic, I look at whether the effect could really upend evolution, however evolution is understood

The butterfly effect is one of those possibilities that sounds frighteningly plausible until one starts going into detail.

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The mathematician Eudoxus of Cnidus was chosen by the gods to devise a method to measure the stars

Faith and Science Before Modern Science — a Fresh Look

Winston Ewert offers a surprising look at how Christians debated science theories in the ancient and medieval world

What Christians thought about the claims of classical science should be seen in light of the fact that the science, not the faith, was later overturned.

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Orange oakleaf, Indian oakleaf or dead leaf, is a nymphalid butterfly

A Butterfly’s “Second Head”: What It Says About Intelligence

Not what it says about intelligence in the butterfly but in nature itself…

If there is no intelligent source of design in nature, the development over time of elaborate mimicry in insects is a conundrum.

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Brain mind way soul and hope concept art, illustration, surreal mystery artwork, imagination painting, conceptual idea of success

An Ancient Argument for the Existence of the Human Soul

Sixteen hundred years ago, Augustine tells a friend about a dream a skeptical local doctor had, where a sharp youth asked him some pointed questions

One issue that arose in that age of controversy was how anything like a human mind could function without a body?

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Mind.

Consciousness and Free Will: JP Moreland’s Case for Dualism

He argues that dualism, the sense that we are souls as well as bodies, is the natural interpretation of our lived experience

Moreland contends thatthe dualist view isn’t an irrational leap of faith but a well-supported, philosophically robust position.

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