The waning of interest in transhumanism may be related to a growing awareness of the fundamental limits of artificial intelligence.
Author: News
Denyse O'Leary is the News blogger for Uncommon Descent
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: 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 Mind Matters News: Panpsychism: If computers can have minds, why can’t the Sun?
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: Pioneer environmentalist: Cyborgs will rule the planet
James Lovelock is very confident that the workings of evolution underpin his thesis but it is hard to see how. Lovelock is hard to classify. He has boundless faith in both Gaia and AI — in almost anything, it would seem, except humans.
Michael Egnor: Mathematics can prove the existence of God
Egnor: Because mathematics can show infinity, eternity, and omnipotence, it can only have proceeded from a mind with those characteristics. That’s God.
At Mind Matters News: Fossil scientists ask, Could a Neanderthal meditate?
How much can we rely on casts from fossil skulls when the relationship between the mind and the brain is unclear even in currently living human beings?
Eric Holloway: Artificial neural networks can show that the mind isn’t the brain
Holloway: : The human mind can do tasks that an artificial neural network (ANN) cannot. Because the brain works like an ANN, the mind cannot just be what the brain does.
At Mind Matters News: Exoplanets: Life forms made one third of Earth’s minerals
If life is “a cosmic imperative that emerges on any mineral- and water-rich world,” say the researchers, then life emerged early on Earth along with minerals.
Apparently, scientists are the only ones exempt from the fact that we evolved to have biases…
When science becomes a substitute for religion or philosophy, it must bear the weight of being a certain kind of truth. The trouble is, science isn’t that kind of truth.
Another, more nuanced, look at the Rosalind Franklin story
We’ve all heard the story, probably: That Rosalind Franklin (1920–1958) should have shared the Nobel Prize for the double helix with Francis Crick (1916–2004) and James Watson. Science writer Nicholas Wade has gone into the story in considerable detail and finds to be much more complex.
At Mind Matters News: Researchers: Distrust of science is due to tribal loyalty
There seems to be no recognition that researchers, however fiercely competitive among themselves, also have a tribal loyalty that skews their judgment.
At Mind Matters News: Jumping genes … a new clue to octopus intelligence?
Formerly thought of as “junk DNA,” their mobility may help explain unique problem-solving abilities. “I literally jumped on the chair…” one researcher said.