Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

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Afraid man in tinfoil helmet watches TV
Afraid man in tinfoil helmet watches TV, paranoia concept. UFO, conspiracy theory, brain theft protection, phobia
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post
Author
Robert J. Marks
Date
December 28, 2018
Categorized
Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience
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3: With Mind-Reading AI, You Will Never Have Secrets Again!

AI help, not hype, with Robert J. Marks: Did you read about the flap they had to cut out of a volunteer’s skull?
Robert J. Marks
December 28, 2018
5
Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience

The Daily Mail is the United Kingdom’s second largest circulation daily. A headline from the webpage screams: No more secrets! New mind-reading machine can translate your thoughts and display them as text INSTANTLY! Not a lot of nuance there. The story continues on a tidal wave of hyperbole, • Researchers say they have developed a machine that can translate our thoughts •  The astonishing machine will analyse what you are thinking and display it as text ending with a charitable hope: •  Scientists hope that the machine can be used by people who are unable to speak The reality is that AI can read your mind for a few words repeated often if you have a flap cut out of your skull and Read More ›

jacket-manikin-mannequin-1263374
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post
Author
Robert J. Marks
Date
December 28, 2018
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Social Factors
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4: Making AI Look More Human Makes It More Human-like!

AI help, not hype, with Robert J. Marks: Technicians can do a lot these days with automated lip-syncs and smiles but what’s behind them?
Robert J. Marks
December 28, 2018
6
Artificial Intelligence, Social Factors
This summer, some were simply agog over “Sophia, the First Robot Citizen” (“unsettling as it is awe-inspiring”) Read More ›
rawpixel-651335-unsplash
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post
Author
Michael Egnor
Date
December 10, 2018
Categorized
Natural Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind
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How is Human Language Different from Animal Signals?

What do we need from language that we cannot get from signals alone?
Michael Egnor
December 10, 2018
7
Natural Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind
Language, which is the rule-based use of abstract designators, is essential for abstract thought because only designators can point to things that have no concrete physical existence. Only human beings think abstractly, and language is what makes abstract thought possible. Read More ›
sam-burriss-392776-unsplash
Man with red paint flowing from eyes
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post
Author
Jonathan Bartlett
Date
December 3, 2018
Categorized
Ethics
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AI and the Future of Murder

If I kill you but upload your mind into an android, did I murder you or just modify you?
Jonathan Bartlett
December 3, 2018
4
Ethics
The sci-fi TV series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2013– ) tackled this question in an episode titled “Self Control”.  Scientist Holden Radcliffe has an android assistant appropriately named Aida (Artificial Intelligence Digital Assistant). Together, they build a virtual world that people could be plugged into and uploaded into, called The Framework. Read More ›
annie-spratt-746980-unsplash
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post
Author
News
Date
November 30, 2018
Categorized
Machine Learning
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Quantity vs Quality: Can AI Help Scientists Produce Better Papers?

What happens when scientists simply can't read all their peers' papers and still find time for original research?
News
November 30, 2018
3
Machine Learning
Quantity is definitely a solved problem. STM, the “voice of scholarly publishing” estimated in 2015 that roughly 2.5 million science papers are published each year. Some are, admittedly, in predatory or fake journals. But over 2800 journals are assumed to be genuine. Read More ›
john-t-413908-unsplash
Man in a maze
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post
Author
Eric Holloway
Date
November 29, 2018
Categorized
Philosophy of Mind
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Has Neuroscience Disproved Thinking?

A philosopher argues that Nobel Prize-winning research shows that the theory of mind is just another illusion, useful for survival and success
Eric Holloway
November 29, 2018
11
Philosophy of Mind
We've all seen this sort of argument before in many other guises. It is commonly called “reductionism.” The reductionist claims that, because an object can be construed as made up of parts, the object is just the parts. It is like saying that because an article like this one is constructed from letters of the alphabet, the article is only rows of letters. Read More ›
nasa-53887-unsplash
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post
Author
Mind Matters
Date
November 12, 2018
Categorized
Philosophy of Mind
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Noted Astronomer Envisions Cyborgs on Mars

Sir Martin Rees thinks of this “post-human evolution” as going beyond Darwin to “secular intelligent design.”
Mind Matters
November 12, 2018
4
Philosophy of Mind
AI apocalypse is certainly in the air. Elon Musk, Henry Kissinger, and the late Stephen Hawking have all predicted an AI doomsday. Industry professionals’ doubt and disparagement don’t seem to register with the media in the same way. Read More ›
Brain Disease Therapy
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
November 8, 2018
Categorized
Medicine and Health, Neuroscience, Social Factors
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Researchers find loneliness is hard on the brain

What we think about our lives really does affect our health.
Denyse O'Leary
November 8, 2018
3
Medicine and Health, Neuroscience, Social Factors
What’s less often recognized is that loneliness could cause be a cause of brain damage as well, at least if we go by rodent studies. Read More ›
Personal communication
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post
Author
Mind Matters
Date
October 23, 2018
Categorized
Philosophy of Mind, Social Factors
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Brain hacks

Do we understand the brain better if we see it as a computer?
Mind Matters
October 23, 2018
6
Philosophy of Mind, Social Factors
Seeing the brain as a computer doesn’t tell us as much as we might think. When human beings build computers, we design them in a way that we can understand and use. So we think our brains must be like that too. Sure enough, in the vast complexity of our brains, we can surely find some elements that remind us of a computer. Others won’t.   Read More ›
Ice cream chocolate and vanilla sundae topping with red cherry.
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post
Author
Jay Richards
Date
October 12, 2018
Categorized
Philosophy of Mind
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A Short Argument Against the Materialist Account of the Mind

You can simply picture yourself eating a chocolate ice cream sundae.
Jay Richards
October 12, 2018
5
Philosophy of Mind
We have thoughts and ideas—what philosophers call “intentional” states—that are about things other than themselves. We don’t really know how this works. But whenever we speak to another person, we assume it must be true. And in our own case, we know it’s true. Even to deny it is to affirm it. Read More ›
Image result for plato
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post
Author
Michael Egnor
Date
October 12, 2018
Categorized
Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind
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Does brain stimulation research challenge free will?

If we can be forced to want something, is the will still free?
Michael Egnor
October 12, 2018
8
Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind
The materialist interpretation of Reilly’s work is a misunderstanding of what the research actually shows. The stimulations did not evoke complex abstract intentions and acts—the patients didn’t reflexively decide to do integral calculus or donate to Amnesty International. Read More ›
MRI Image Of Head Showing Brain
Type
post
Author
Michael Egnor
Date
September 26, 2018
Categorized
Machine Learning, Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind
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Do either machines—or brains—really learn?

A further response to Jeffrey Shallit: Actually, brains don’t learn either. Only minds learn.
Michael Egnor
September 26, 2018
4
Machine Learning, Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind
Learning is an ability of human beings, considered as a whole, to acquire new knowledge, not an ability of human organs considered individually. Read More ›
bonobos
Type
post
Author
Michael Egnor
Date
September 21, 2018
Categorized
Natural Intelligence
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Apes Can Be Generous

Are they just like humans then?
Michael Egnor
September 21, 2018
9
Natural Intelligence
If we are to genuinely understand machines, animals, and ourselves, we need to clearly understand that it is the immateriality of human intellect and will—our capacity to think and act abstractly— that makes us radically (i.e. ontologically) different from any animal or machine. Read More ›
masaaki-komori-627104-unsplash
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post
Author
Mind Matters
Date
September 20, 2018
Categorized
Natural Intelligence
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Is the octopus a “second genesis of intelligence”?

Can its strange powers provide insights for robotics or the human mind?
Mind Matters
September 20, 2018
3
Natural Intelligence
What’s really interesting about these stories is that, while we are learning that there is much intelligence in the animal (and plant) world, including some that can be applied to robotics, very little sheds light on explicitly human intelligence. Read More ›
benjamin-davies-361151-unsplash
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post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
August 31, 2018
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind, Social Factors
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Could AI Understand the Universe?

World-renowned chemist thinks it might understand what we can’t, including consciousness
Denyse O'Leary
August 31, 2018
3
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind, Social Factors
Atkins is arguing that the fact that we do not understand what consciousness is, far from being a barrier to creating artificial consciousness, offers the hope that, once we do create them, artificially conscious entities will understand consciousness but we won’t. The proposition sounds a bit confused, no? Read More ›
MRI Image Of Head Showing Brain
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post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
August 24, 2018
Categorized
Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind
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Do Big Brains Matter to Human Intelligence?

We don’t know. Brain research readily dissolves into confusion at that point
Denyse O'Leary
August 24, 2018
2
Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind

We also know very little about the human brain. Take this controversy about why the large human brain evolved...

Read More ›
Conceptual image of a large stone in the shape of the human brain
The young and conceptual image of a large stone in the shape of the human brain
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post
Author
Michael Egnor
Date
August 7, 2018
Categorized
Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind
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The Brain Is Not a “Meat Computer”

Dramatic recoveries from brain injury highlight the difference
Michael Egnor
August 7, 2018
6
Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind

The brain looks like a computer only if we analyze it as if it were a computer. Our analysis does not mean that it is a computer, and it does not mean that computation explains the mind or even that computational approaches to neuroscience provide genuinely meaningful insight into neurophysiology.

Read More ›
Little girl undergoing electroencephalography procedure
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post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
July 25, 2018
Categorized
Philosophy of Mind, Social Factors
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Attend your own funeral!

It’s easy if you upload your consciousness to the cloud, says futurist
Denyse O'Leary
July 25, 2018
6
Philosophy of Mind, Social Factors
Presumably, in Ian Pearson's future, the rich can attend their own funerals and alternate world funerals an indefinite number of times, each one numbering as many different people as he wants. Read More ›