Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

TagWinston Ewert

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generative ai overview for project managers fund invetment and data analysis.

AGI, the Halting Problem and the Human Mind

Pat Flynn continues the conversation with Dr. Winston Ewert
According to Ewert, Ray Kurzweil’s famed Singularity is not possible because AI cannot create an intelligence greater than itself. Read More ›
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The Human Mind’s Sophisticated Algorithm and Its Implications

Winston Ewert argues that if some human cognition is algorithmic, that fact does not necessarily support a purely naturalistic view of intelligence
Ewert also notes that recognizing human cognition as, in part, an algorithm raises deeper questions about the origin and sophistication of that algorithm. Read More ›
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Programmer: How We Know Computers Won’t Surpass the Human Mind

Winston Ewert points out that we can only devise a “halting detector” less powerful than the ones our own minds have
Ewert predicts that, while humans will get better at building artificial intelligence systems, we will never be able to match ourselves. Read More ›
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Businessman holds the model of business, made from wood blocks. Alternative risk concept, business plan and business strategy. Insurance concept.

Design versus Naturalist Origin Theories of Animal Algorithms

The programming inside the animal brain is much like a game of Jenga. If one tries to pull the wrong block, then the entire stack comes crashing down. Robert J. Marks and Eric Cassell discuss how animal algorithms serve as the perfect example of irreducible complexity. Show Notes Additional Resources

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Can Wholly Random Processes Produce Information?

Can information result, without intention, from a series of accidents? Some have tried it with computers…

In Define information before you talk about it, neurosurgeon Michael Egnor interviewed engineering prof Robert J. Marks on the way information, not matter, shapes our world (October 28, 2021). In the first portion, Egnor and Marks discussed questions like: Why do two identical snowflakes seem more meaningful than one snowflake. Then they turned to the relationship between information and creativity. Is creativity a function of more information? Or is there more to it? And human intervention make any difference? Does Mount Rushmore have no more information than Mount Fuji? Does human intervention make a measurable difference? That’s specified complexity. Putting the idea of specified complexity to work, how do we measure meaningful information? How do we know Lincoln contained more Read More ›

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Law book library

US News’ Law School Rankings Are Losing Ground, Analyst Says

Big Data has enabled a number of competitive new ranking systems, says Wake Forest University prof

Recently, physics professor Jed Macosko of Wake Forest University spoke to Mind Matters News about the way access to huge troves of data (Big Data) enables a variety of university ranking systems, depending on what matters to the prospective student. This is a far cry from traditional ranking systems like US News, which assume that all agree on the ranking criteria. You’re a physics professor who co-founded a new college ranking system. How did you end up here? I was born in 1972, in Minneapolis. My dad, Chris Macosko, who had a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Princeton University, worked in Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Minnesota. There were four of us kids and we grew Read More ›