Category: Neuroscience
Neuroscientist debunks hype about no free will, etc.
| June 3, 2018 | Posted by News under Intelligent Design, Mind, Naturalism, Neuroscience |
A friend writes, “This young German brain researcher publicly condemns exaggerated claims of neuroscientists, “debunking” of free will, so-called dangerous brains, and so forth.” Talk by Dr. S. (Stephan) Schleim at the 2014 Heymans Symposium ‘Research Worth Spreading’ of the Psychology department of the University of Groningen and Understanding the possibilities and limitations of brain […]
Neuroskeptic serves up some skepticism about a recent memory transfer claim
| May 19, 2018 | Posted by News under Intelligent Design, Mind, Neuroscience |
For sea slugs, via RNA transfer. At Discover: There’s a couple of reasons why I don’t think this is evidence of “memory transfer”. Firstly, what was transferred here was hardly a memory in the usual sense of the word. It is simply an increase in the sensitivity of a set of neurons, a single reflex […]
Can we build a computer with free will?
| March 16, 2018 | Posted by News under Intelligent Design, Mind, Neuroscience |
While some dispute the very existence of free will, others claim to know how to build a computer with free will (so, presumably they think free will, or something like it, exists). From physicist Mark Hadley at The Conversation: Strangely, the philosophical literature does not seem to consider tests for free will. But as a […]
Neuroskeptic: Research casts doubt on the idea that the brain is a machine with parts
| March 13, 2018 | Posted by News under Intelligent Design, Mind, Neuroscience |
A machine with parts that each do one thing. From Neuroskeptic at Discover: This “behavior-first” approach has revealed many associations between particular functions and particular brain regions. However, Genon et al. say, it has become clear that any given behavioral function involves more than one brain region, and it may be that there is no […]
The memtransistor as brainlike computing – with what outcome?
| February 28, 2018 | Posted by News under Artificial Intelligence, Information, Intelligent Design, Mind, Neuroscience |
From ScienceDaily: In recent years, researchers have searched for ways to make computers more neuromorphic, or brain-like, in order to perform increasingly complicated tasks with high efficiency. Now Hersam, a Walter P. Murphy Professor of Materials Science and Engineering in Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering, and his team are bringing the world closer to realizing […]
Neuroscientist: We will never build a machine that mimics our personal consciousness
| February 10, 2018 | Posted by News under Intelligent Design, Mind, Naturalism, Neuroscience |
From Michael S. Gazzaniga at Nautilus: Perhaps the most surprising discovery for me is that I now think we humans will never build a machine that mimics our personal consciousness. Inanimate silicon-based machines work one way, and living carbon-based systems work another. One works with a deterministic set of instructions, and the other through symbols […]
The Edge, a science thinksite, asks “The Last Question”
| February 7, 2018 | Posted by News under Artificial Intelligence, Computing, AI, Cybernetics and Mechatronics, Information, Intelligent Design, Mind, Neuroscience |
as in “your last question, the question for which you will be remembered.” Some interesting answers (in the form of questions) emerge: Can we program a computer to find a 10,000-bit string that encodes more actionable wisdom than any human has ever expressed? – Scott Aronson Are complex biological neural systems fundamentally unpredictable? – Anthony […]
Researchers: Human language circuits not “new”; they predate humans
| February 4, 2018 | Posted by News under Human evolution, Intelligent Design, language, Neuroscience |
From ScienceDaily: It has often been claimed that humans learn language using brain components that are specifically dedicated to this purpose. Now, new evidence strongly suggests that language is in fact learned in brain systems that are also used for many other purposes and even pre-existed humans, say researchers in PNAS (Early Edition online Jan. […]
Researchers: Could an ancient virus account for human consciousness?
| February 3, 2018 | Posted by News under Evolution, horizontal gene transfer, Intelligent Design, Mind, Neuroscience |
From Rafi Letzter at LiveScience: According to two papers published in the journal Cell in January, long ago, a virus bound its genetic code to the genome of four-limbed animals. That snippet of code is still very much alive in humans’ brains today, where it does the very viral task of packaging up genetic information […]
Philosopher: “Self” is a scientific concept
| January 31, 2018 | Posted by News under Intelligent Design, Mind, Naturalism, Neuroscience, Philosophy, Science |
From Serif Tekin at Aeon: I call my proposed model the ‘multitudinous self’. ‘Do I contradict myself?’ asks the poet Walt Whitman in ‘Song of Myself’ (1891-92), ‘Very well then I contradict myself, / (I am large, I contain multitudes.)’ The multitudinous self is empirically tractable and responsive to the experiences of ‘real people’ who […]
At Scientific American: Science may never solve the riddle of human consciousness
| January 30, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Intelligent Design, Mind, Naturalism, Neuroscience |
From John Horgan: In The End of Science I asserted that scientists are running into cognitive and physical limits and will never solve the deepest mysteries of nature, notably why there is something rather than nothing. I predicted that if we create super-intelligent machines, they too will be baffled by the enigma of their own […]
A review of remarkable cases of people’s minds functioning despite brain damage
| December 25, 2017 | Posted by News under Intelligent Design, Mind, Naturalism, Neuroscience |
Abstract: Neuroscientists typically assume that human mental functions are generated by the brain and that its structural elements, including the different cell layers and tissues that form the neocortex, play specific roles in this complex process. Different functional units are thought to complement one another to create an integrated self-awareness or episodic memory. Still, findings […]
Phineas Gage files: Funny how the naturalist legend so long outlived the man…
| December 22, 2017 | Posted by News under Culture, Intelligent Design, Mind, Naturalism, Neuroscience |
From Steve Twomey at the Smithsonian Magazine (2010), presumably a vintage article recycled this morning or so, without context, about the catastrophic brain injuries that supposedly greatly changed a man’s personality (psych lecture room staple): Gage’s initial survival would have ensured him a measure of celebrity, but his name was etched into history by observations made […]
If the mind is an illusion, how can amputees control robotic arms?
| November 29, 2017 | Posted by News under Intelligent Design, Mind, Naturalism, Neuroscience |
Maybe the arms are an illusion too… From ScienceDaily: Neuroscientists have shown how amputees can learn to control a robotic arm through electrodes implanted in the brain. The research details changes that take place in both sides of the brain used to control the amputated limb and the remaining, intact limb. The results show both […]
Neurosurgeon: Craniopagus twins demonstrate separate “souls” without separate brains
| November 27, 2017 | Posted by News under Intelligent Design, Mind, Naturalism, Neuroscience |
The 21st century is not turning out at all the way pundits thought. From neurosurgeon Michael Egnor at Evolution News & Views: It is important to understand the aspects of mind that they do share. They share some motor control, some common sensations, and probably share some aspects of imagination — that is, the ability […]
Psychologists: Consciousness is an illusion, like a rainbow
| November 26, 2017 | Posted by News under Culture, Intelligent Design, Mind, Naturalism, Neuroscience |
From David Oakley and Peter Halligan at The Conversation: If the experience of consciousness does not confer any particular advantage, it’s not clear what its purpose is. But as a passive accompaniment to non-conscious processes, we don’t think that the phenomenon of personal awareness has a purpose, in much the same way that rainbows do […]
11-year-old conjoined twins have a connected brain, see through each others’ eyes, but have separate minds
| November 6, 2017 | Posted by News under Intelligent Design, Mind, Naturalism, Neuroscience |
From CBC: BC’s Hogan twins, featured in the documentary Inseparable, are unique in the world. Joined at the head, their brains are connected by a thalamic bridge which gives them neurological capabilities that researchers are only now beginning to understand. Still, they are like other Canadian eleven-year-olds; they attend school, have a favourite pet and […]
Researchers: Your brain knows when you have died
| October 22, 2017 | Posted by News under Mind, Neuroscience |
According to those who have been resuscitated from clinical death. From Fox News: The evidence reportedly suggests a surge of brain activity immediately after a near-death experience. “What tends to happen is that people who’ve had these very profound experiences may come back positively transformed — they become more altruistic, more engaged with helping others. […]
Nature cannot be all there is. Science demonstrates that.
| October 17, 2017 | Posted by News under Intelligent Design, Mind, Multiverse, Naturalism, Neuroscience, Philosophy |
From Denyse O’Leary at Evolution News & Views: Naturalists (who say nature is all there is) have recently sought to jimmy the rules around evidence to accommodate their strong belief that a multiverse really exists. Astrophysicist Ethan Siegel offers a glimpse of the future they propose, in a piece at Forbes titled “The multiverse […]
Neuroscience: Walking back “Perception a controlled hallucination”
| October 16, 2017 | Posted by News under Intelligent Design, Mind, Neuroscience, Philosophy |
From Ari N. Shulman at Big Questions Online: Is human perception a controlled hallucination? That was the claim advanced in a pair of talks at the Human Mind Conference in Cambridge, England in June, one by Anil Seth, a neuroscientist at the University of Sussex, the other by Andy Clark, a philosopher at the University […]
