Neurosurgeon Michael Egnor, who knows some details about the brain, responds: What is most remarkable about these patients is that after the surgery they are unaffected in everyday life, except for the diminished seizures.
Mind
Wow. Panpsychism gets a respectful hearing at Scientific American
Can you imagine that years ago? But the fact is, materialists are out of ideas about consciousness and don’t know where to go.
Thinking More Deeply About Causation
Most people (including experts) tend to have a one-level view of causation. That is, they have a static idea of what the subject matter is, and then they look to see how the pieces bounce around within that static structure. That more or less works for physics. It totally fails everywhere else.
Consciousness researcher explains his doubts re conscious machines
But first, wait a minute.We do not really know what consciousness is. That is true whether or not “our intelligence and our experiences are ineluctable consequences of the natural causal powers of our brain, rather than any supernatural ones.” as Christof Koch claims.
Jerry Coyne berates panpsychists and tackles the hard problem of consciousness
So did Coyne not give Goff the right of reply? Apparently, he would need a beaker of antacid to read the guy’s book…
Rethinking what it means to be “legally human”
Perhaps we will morph into a civilization where a turtle with some human cells is legally human and therefore has security of the person but vast swathes of humanity are not. If you vote for people who think that’s cool, at least you will get something you voted for. Happy New Year.
Researchers: We process information from sight outside our visual cortex
At Mind Matters News: A major consequence of the advance of modern neuroscience is that we now “know” so much less than we used to. But what we do know points us in promising research directions.
Jonathan Bartlett on why we can’t upload our brains to computers
The idea that we can upload our brains to computers to avoid death shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the differences between types of thinking.
Michael Egnor sympathizes with people who think the universe is conscious
Michaael Egnor: There is no doubt that consciousness is a fundamental property of animal and human existence. As philosopher Philip Goff notes, a philosophy that cannot plausibly account for it cannot be correct.
Historian: Christianity has been the world’s greatest engine for moral reform
Thomas Kidd: To cite just one, sociologist Robert Woodberry showed in a landmark 2012 article that Christian missionaries were responsible for much of the global spread of cultural values such as “religious liberty, mass education, mass printing, newspapers, voluntary organizations, and colonial reforms” from Latin America to East Asia.
Jonathan Bartlett points out a key contradiction about “thinking robots” and “robot rights”
If we were able to make intelligent and sentient AIs, wouldn’t that mean we would have to stop programming them? It would be unethical for me to force you to do my will, so wouldn’t the same thing be true with AIs? [Not that it is ever going to happen, but… ]
Test: If naturalists are right, totalitarian states should be just as creative as free ones
A Chinese university is dumping intellectual freedom from their charters yet China hopes to be the world’s top AI power. Is there a contradiction here?
Consciousness: Philosopher Massimo Pigliucci skates around the main problems
It’s time to revive dualism: “And lastly, Pigliucci insists, without offering evidence, that dualism is “antiscientific.” Dualism is a logical conclusion from our circumstances; we are beings of both mind and matter. And those who would refute dualism tend to involve themselves in stranger claims, as we have seen.”
At New Scientist: Human intelligence isn’t all it’s cracked up to be
A working definition of intelligence defeats us for the same reasons as a working definition of beauty defeats us. Once abstractions become instantiated, they are laden with particulars. That does NOT mean that the idea is without meaning.
Eric Holloway: Scanning my brain, playing Tetris, shows true AI is impossible
He bought a brain wave scanning kit and tested it on physical signs of his abstract thought, playing a game.