05Nov 2024 by Post

Getting Stoned: Did It Shape Human Origins?

abstract thinking, anthropology, Aristotle, behavior, Big Think, Bobby Azarian, consciousness, Entropic Brain Hypothesis, Evolution, evolutionary psychology, Food of the Gods, human mind, Human Origins, magic mushrooms, Neuroscience & Mind, neuroscientists, New Stoned Ape Theory, panpsychism, psilocybin, Roger Penrose, Stone Age, Stoned Ape Theory, Terence McKenna
For a really wild excursion, nothing beats efforts to explain the evolution of the human mind. Source
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26Oct 2024 by Post

Soul Survives Death? ER Doc Faces Skepticism

Baram Elahi, brain function, cardiac arrest, clinical death, Closer to Truth, consciousness, death, doctors, Faith & Science, John Eccles, Lord Kelvin, Lucid Dying, near-death experiences, Neuroscience & Mind, Nobel Prize, physics, post-death consciousness, Psyche, Robert Lawrence Kuhn, Sam Parnia, skepticism, soul
In discussion with Robert Lawrence Kuhn, Dr. Sam Parnia stuck to his clearly defined evidence, avoiding religious digressions. Source
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15Oct 2024 by Post

What the Heck is Artificial Intelligence and Why Does it Matter?

AI, Alex Cramer, Artificial Intelligence, consciousness, cultural apologetics, Legislating Morality, Culture & Politics, MamaBearApologetics.com, personhood, Science and Technology, Techies
A TikToker programs himself a virtual AI girlfriend and decides to “euthanize” her when she becomes less responsive, and he falls into depression. Entire porn sites are dedicated to stealing the images of female online influencers (specifically Twitch streamers) using AI to create “deepfake” pornography. And creative things that we typically perceive as uniquely human, like art and music, are being generated by AI . . . and they are impressive, to say the least. There’s no denying it. Things are getting really weird. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is all the rage in 2023, and why shouldn’t it be? We just got over a pandemic. Time to bring in the free-thinking robots. We’ve got to keep things exciting! If the world isn’t about to end, is it even worth living? No…
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07Sep 2024 by Post

A Quarter of Comatose Patients May Be Aware But Unable to Communicate

brain activity, brain responses, brain scans, cognitive motor dissociation, comatose, communication technologies, consciousness, Elon Musk, fMRI, Julian Nowogrodzki, Medicine, Neuralink, neuroscience, Neuroscience & Mind, Noland Arbaugh, patient assessment, patients, Technology
“Covertly” means that the patients were not able to respond directly but brain activity showed that they understood what was asked of them. Source
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02Sep 2024 by Post

Biophysicist Proposes “Spiritual Particle”

beetroots, consciousness, Daniel Dennett, Darwinian evolution theory, Darwinism, Douglas Youvan, eliminationism, Energy, Evolution, Galen Strawson, illusion, matter, natural selection, neuroscience, Neuroscience & Mind, panpsychism, Physics, Earth & Space, psychology, random mutation, snakes, spiritual particle, universe
It has, Douglas Youvan suggests, a dual nature, interacting with both matter and consciousness. Source
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30Jun 2024 by Post

Bees with Feelings? A Darwinist Winces

animal consciousness, animals, Chemistry, consciousness, Daniel Dennett, Evolution, Feelings, flight distance, human consciousness, insects, Jerry Coyne, Lars Chittka, natural selection, naturalism, Neuroscience & Mind, panpsychism, Princeton University Press, protozoans, qualia, Queen Mary University, Scientific American, sentience, The Mind of a Bee, Tufts University
Most naturalist philosophers of mind have held that human consciousness — maddeningly mysterious — is an illusion. Source
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15May 2024 by Post

Consciousness BEFORE Life? These Scientists Say Yes

Alexander Oparin, Anirban Bandyopadhyay, asteroids, Bennu, brains, consciousness, Dante Lauretta, Darwinian materialists, Evolution, genes, Institute for Arts and Ideas, mind, Murchison meteorite, Neuroscience & Mind, philosophers, quantum collapse, quantum superpositions, Roger Penrose, scientists, solar system, Stuart Hameroff, wave function
One key way life differs from non-life is that life forms have goals. For example, the amoeba seeks to protect itself. Source
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29Apr 2024 by Post

Do Fungi Have Free-Will?

agency, automaton, biology, Chemistry, Complexity, consciousness, decision-making, Evidence, Evolution, free will, fungal mind, genetics, human behavior, hyphae, imago Dei, intelligence, Intelligent Design, Internet, Judeo-Christian tradition, learning, Life Sciences, materialism, memory, Miami University, mind, mycelium, mycology, Neuroscience & Mind, Nicholas P. Money, Ohio, physics, randomness, science writers, scientists, sensitivity
Whenever a new hypothesis like this is published and calmly debated in scientific journals without arousing any furor, your first instinct may be to scoff. Source
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