TagConsciousness
Computers Still Do Not “Understand”
Don't be seduced into attributing human traits to computers.Defending Why We’re More than Machines
We need to look beyond materialism to understand what it means to be human.Science Needs a Mind to Work
The use of science to discredit the existence of mental subjects is fatally flawed.If Science Doesn’t Support Dualism — Well, It Should
At Big Think, Kmele Foster interviews five figures in consciousness studies. Not one is a dualist but a listener may come away with a new appreciation for dualismPhilip Goff’s “Why” and Inflated Success
We are still nowhere closer to arriving at a science of consciousnessGary Habermas on Near-Death Experiences
What is the evidence and how many reports of this phenomenon do we have?Reflections on “Are Atoms Conscious?” and Philip Goff
Can we admit consciousness without giving into theism?Don’t Expect AI to Revolutionize Science
Data science is a downstream phenomenon. Thinking isn't.Does Passing the Turing Test Guarantee We’ve Created True AI?
A true test of AI will be able to distinguish between AI and human intelligence.Megan Review, Part 2
Happy Halloween! A killer doll breaks protocol.Last time, we talked about how Gemma gave Cady, her niece, a robotic doll, Megan, to help her raise the child after Cady’s parents were killed. At first, things go smoothly enough, but then Megan is attacked by a dog. The writers seem to have given us two potential theories about what’s happening. The first is that the robot is going through some sort of awakening right at the beginning. Megan has overridden the various safety protocols put in place to keep the robot from hurting people, and it’s only pretending to be protective of Cady. The second option is that during this dog attack, the fail safes malfunction, and this enables the robot to go on its murderous rampage. Read More ›
How Could Human Consciousness “Evolve”?
Human consciousness entails a unique human ability to think abstractly .Megan Review, Part 1
An AI doll that does more than just play.Since it’s nearing Halloween, I figured now would be a good time to review some Sci-Fi movies that dabble in the horror genre. Megan came out in 2022 and has been referred to as Chucky for Zoomers. The premise is the same as the horror movie, Child’s Play, from 1988: a child gets a doll. Doll turns psychotic and kills people. It’s pretty straightforward. However, Megan differs by adding a technological twist, calling back to the creepy Furbies, which came out in 1998. Really, those awful toys should’ve had a horror movie of their own. There are many a tale of the mechanical monsters waking up under the bed in the dead of night six months after the poor child Read More ›
Science of Consciousness: The Elephant in the Room
Science has had great success in explaining many functions of living organisms in purely material terms. So why not consciousness?Zero K: A Novel About Escaping the World Through Technology
Zero K by novelist Don DeLillo is a frightening but prophetic tale of transhumanism and the temptation to evade suffering at all costs.Why Are We Obsessed With How Smart AI Is?
The people with the most specific knowledge should be assessing applications for AI and their risks.So AI is “Slightly Conscious” Now?
The AI optimists can't get away from the problem of consciousness.The idea that artificial intelligence could ever become actually “intelligent” is a minority view, but it’s espoused by some brilliant minds, including Jason Lemoine, an ex-Google employee who claimed the company’s developing AI system was sentient. Lemoine isn’t alone. According to Futurism, OpenAI’s top researcher, Ilya Sutskever, claimed in a Tweet this week that “large neural networks are slightly conscious.” Noor Al-Sibai writes, He’s long been preoccupied with artificial general intelligence, or AGI, which would refer to AI that operates at a human or superhuman level. During his appearance in the AI documentary “iHuman,” for instance, he even declared that that AGIs will “solve all the problems that we have today” before warning that they will also present “the potential to create Read More ›
When Science Points Beyond the Physical
The idea that science has somehow shown the irrelevance of the mind to explaining behavior is seriously confused.The Big Problem for Physicalism
One physicalist theory after another has either ignored or falsified the central characteristics of consciousnessEditor’s note: We are delighted to welcome the new book from Discovery Institute Press, Minding the Brain: Models of the Mind, Information, and Empirical Science, edited by Angus J. L. Menuge, Brian R. Krouse, and Robert J. Marks. Below is an excerpt from Chapter 2. Look for more information at MindingtheBrain.org. By Angus Menuge The history of physicalism is one of extraordinary diversity: a wide variety of theories, with multiple versions, have jockeyed for dominance. Yet it is also a tale of persistent failure. One physicalist theory after another has either ignored or falsified the central characteristics of consciousness, intentionality, and rationality that define our mental life. We will begin by tracing the history of physicalism from the early varieties of behaviorism Read More ›