Tag Archives: consciousness

July 19, 2024 This essay falls into three parts. First, I  discuss the question of what it is which makes  humans unique — that is, irreplaceable.  Second, I consider whether  machines  on balance  enhance or diminish humanness.   This has become an issue of the moment  with the growth of machine intelligence. Finally, I try to answer two questions: how can we secure our survival as  human beings? Is it worth trying to do so? A quick preview of  my answer to the first question. Some...

Interesting critique of emergence in natural systems.Is the brain the producer of consciousness, or is the brain a receptor?MindMattersWhy the Mind Cannot Just Emerge From the BrainRobert J. Marks in conversation with neurosurgeon Michael Egnor WHY THE MIND CANNOT JUST EMERGE FROM THE BRA WHY THE MIND CANNOT JUST EMERGE FROM THE BRA WHY THE MIND CANNOT JUST EMERGE FROM THE BRA

Over the last decade, my colleague, University of California, Santa Barbara psychology professor Jonathan Schooler and I have developed what we call a “resonance theory of consciousness.” We suggest that resonance – another word for synchronized vibrations – is at the heart of not only human consciousness but also animal consciousness and of physical reality more generally. It sounds like something the hippies might have dreamed up – it’s all vibrations, man! – but stick with me. The...

First, the Church-Turing Thesis.The Church-Turing Thesis states that, given any effective procedure or method (or algorithm) by which the value of a mathematical function can be obtained, then that same function can also be computed and its value obtained automatically by a Turing machine (see Copeland 1997, “The Thesis and its History”).To be “effective,” the algorithm or procedure must have a finite number of instructions in a finite number of steps, and could in principle be done by a...

In the video below, Miguel Nicolelis (a neuroscientist of the US Duke University) and Ronald Cicurel (a mathematician) discuss their book: Cicurel, Ronald and ‎Miguel A. L. Nicolelis. 2015. The Relativistic Brain: How it Works and Why it Cannot Be Simulated by a Turing Machine. Kios Press, Natal, Montreux, Durham, São Paulo. [embedded content]There are too many fascinating points in this discussion to fully describe.But what is notable is their scepticism of the more grandiose aims of the...

Ken B, take note!Since I am getting flack for being skeptical about the Turing test, let me review Alan M. Turing’s original paper “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” (1950).As a matter of pure historical interest, one of the first people to imagine intelligent machines was the 19th century novelist Samuel Butler in the novel Erewhon (London, 1865), which is actually cited by Turing in his bibliography of this paper (Turing 1950: 460). A case of life imitating art?Anyway, I divide my post...