Okay, so nuts did it. The thing is, fat, meat, and starch have all been blamed for the big human brain. When do we get round to spices and salt? They’ve been unjustly neglected.
Mind
Angus Menuge on the mind–body problem: It’s like developing and then writing down an idea
It would be a very poorly designed system if, every time we wanted to raise our arm, we’d have to know how to adjust each and every molecule in our arm or what specific pattern of nerve signals we would have to send. Well, then we’d be unable to act. And likewise, if what matters is that I don’t stub my toe again, all I’ve got to remember is, don’t push your toe like that rather than worrying about how I did it this time. Because the odds are, I’d never do the same physical movement again.
Philosopher Angus Menuge on why traditional physicalism isn’t really working
The shift toward emergentism will probably begin to affect debates over evolution. Evolution theories based on physicalism will likely face challenges from unexpected quarters.
Human exceptionalism: You can be a good or a bad human but you can’t just be an animal
When we try to escape into being animals, all that happens is that we reason badly and become bad humans. And the moment we even bring reason into the discussion — well, that’s precisely what human exceptionalism is about!
Conundrum: What if you could make an exact duplicate of yourself?
The problems of replicating oneself are addressed in a funny sci-fi short on human selfhood: For one thing, the replicant doesn’t know that he is not the original. He has no reason to think so.
Huge structures found from 7000 years ago in Arabia
Over a thousand of them. How does it compare with Gobekli Tepe? Well, that was ten thousand years ago. The past gets thicker all the time as the dumb caveman recedes …
At Mind Matters News: Will humans ever be fully replaceable by AI?
Berger: “Man is an imperfect image of God, as we all regularly demonstrate. Some images are more degraded than others. Similarly, any image man creates of himself will be a less than perfect image of himself. Hence, man can never make AI that is in the image of God, He can only make a degraded image of himself. “
At Mind Matters News: Neuroscientist: We are closing in on the secret of self-awareness…
But then he turns around and admits that we are frustratingly far from understanding how it all works. His frustration is understandable.
Michael Egnor is asked: If IQ is inherited, is the intellect simply material?
Egnor: The intellect and will depend on but are not created by bodily functions, senses, and memory. They are, however, affected by deficits in these areas.
Even if humans were “evolving smarter,” would it make any difference?
Surprising as it may seem, there is no clear evidence that key thinking skills improve with measured intelligence.
William Dembski: Artificial intelligence understands by not understanding
Dembski continues to reflect on Erik J. Larson’s new book, The Myth of Artificial Intelligence: Why Computers Can’t Think the Way We Do (2021). He recalls his experiences learning to write boilerplate for a psychology chatbot back in 1982.
At Academic Influence: Jed Macosko interviews Erik J. Larson, author of The Myth of Artificial Intelligence
Larson explains what he hopes to convey to the reader about the limitations of Really Big Computers.
Bruce Gordon: In quantum physics, “reality” really IS what we choose to observe
Gordon: The very fact that we can make a causally disconnected choice of whether wave or particle phenomena are manifested in a quantum system essentially shows that there is no measurement-independent and causally connected, substantial material reality at the micro physical level. It is created by the measurement itself.
From Bill Dembski: Automated driving and other failures of AI
Dembski: in the cossetted and sanitized environments that we have constructed for ourselves in the U.S., have no clue of what capabilities AI actually needs to achieve to truly match what humans can do. The shortfall facing AI is extreme.
Science writer John Horgan explains how he came to doubt the AI apocalypse
Takehome: Horgan finds that, despite the enormous advances in neuroscience, genetics, cognitive science, and AI, our minds remain “as mysterious as ever.”