If the Hard AI people are right, animism — the belief that inanimate objects (whether the Sun or a computer) can have minds — has been unjustly dismissed.
At Mind Matters News: Epitaph for transhumanism: But it’s far from dead!, advocate says
The waning of interest in transhumanism may be related to a growing awareness of the fundamental limits of artificial intelligence.
At Phys.org: Ancient source of oxygen for life hidden deep in the Earth’s crust
Scientists at Newcastle University have uncovered a source of oxygen that may have influenced the evolution of life before the advent of photosynthesis. The pioneering research project, led by Newcastle University’s School of Natural and Environmental Sciences and published today in Nature Communications, uncovered a mechanism that can generate hydrogen peroxide from rocks during the movement of geological faults. While Read More…
Eric Holloway: How AI neural networks show that the mind is not the brain
Holloway: Neural networks get stymied by complex decisions due to the very processes that enable them to make any decisions at all. That’s a fundamental limitation.
At Mind Matters News: If DNA is a language, who is the speaker?
So, the pivotal question that the information content of DNA and other biomolecules raises is, can the relevant forces of nature, namely gravity and the electromagnetic forces, produce the complex, information-rich, functional biomolecules found within even unicellular organisms?
At Mind Matters News: Human brain shape hardly changed in 160,000 years
The human brain reaches 95% of adult size at six years of age. Interestingly seven years of age is commonly held to be the “age of reason.”
At Mind Matters News: Could we really increase human IQ via genetic engineering?
It’s not clear what, explicitly, human intelligence is or even how it originates. Ethics aside, there’s no way to decide who to save and who to throw away.
Eric Holloway: Can computer neural networks learn better than human neurons?
Takehome: Humans can do things that AI cannot do, as we saw earlier, but those abilities are not due to the superior learning ability of a human neuron.
At Evolution News: Recognizing Providence in the History of Life Is a Hint About Our Own Lives
“An arena of fine-tuning we can all appreciate, not quantitatively but qualitatively, is how in most events of our lives, things go right, when there are so many more ways that they could go wrong.”
At Symmetry Magazine: Why aren’t neutrinos adding up?
“Physicists take on the mystery of the missing (and extra) neutrinos.”
At Sci Tech Daily: Nanoscale Rotors Constructed From DNA – Smallest Flow-Driven Motors in the World
“Scientists have constructed the smallest flow-driven motors in the world. Inspired by iconic Dutch windmills and biological motor proteins, they created a self-configuring flow-driven rotor from DNA that converts energy from an electrical or salt gradient into useful mechanical work.”
At Science News: A new James Webb telescope image reveals a galactic collision’s aftermath
“Bright, dusty spokes connect the inner and outer rings of the Cartwheel Galaxy in [a] new James Webb Space Telescope image, giving fresh insight into rare double-ringed galaxies.”
The Intelligent Design Audiopaper Project
I was thinking recently, about how many audiobooks are consumed by people these days. I would guess that the main reason behind this consumption is convenience. Many people just don’t have the time, or don’t create the time, to really sit down and get their head in a book. But I understand that for many, Read More…
At Evolution News: An Evolutionary Mathematician Flunks Biology
Arguments and counter-arguments serve a purpose in arriving at a truthful conclusion. But what if one side jumps ship when the waves of counter-argument are unassailable?
At Live Science: Solar storm from hole in the sun will hit Earth on Wednesday (Aug. 3)
Ben Turner writes: Thankfully, the storm is classified as weak. High-speed solar winds from a “hole” in the sun’s atmosphere are set to hit Earth’s magnetic field on Wednesday (Aug 3.), triggering a minor G-1 geomagnetic storm. Forecasters at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) made the prediction after observing Read More…