What Is Consciousness For? Sixteen Theories Take a Crack at the Question

Albert Newen, anole lizards, Antonella Tramacere, Antonio Damasio, Axel Cleeremans, biology, Carlos Montemayor, Catherine Tallon-Baudry, cognition, cognitive science, consciousness, Dogs, Eva Jablonka, Experience, Gianmarco Maldarelli, horses, Jacques Singer, Jonathan Birch, Jonathon D. Crystal, Julio Hechavarria, Kristin Andrews, Krzysztof Dołęga, Lars Chittka, Léa Moncoucy, Lucia Melloni, Maxime Janbon, memory, neuroscience, Neuroscience & Mind, Nicholas Humphrey, Noam Miller, Olga Dyakova, Onur Güntürkün, philosophy, Robert Lawrence Kuhn, Royal Society, Sarah Skeels, self-awareness, Simon Alexander Burns Brown, Simona Ginsburg, T.S. Eliot, Yuranny Cabral-Calderin, zoology
It sounds like we do not really know what we are looking for, which will doubtless complicate efforts to find it. Source
Read More

The Levin Teleology Revolution Is Here

academia, Aristotle, Biological Theory, biology, Brian Charlesworth, Brian Miller, careers, cognition, computer code, David B. Resnik, designer, Douglas Futuyma, Evolution, Gen Z, gender issues, goal-directedness, graduate school, intelligence, Intelligent Design, intentionality, Jerry Coyne, Michael Levin, neo-Darwinians, neuroscience, Plato, Plato's Revenge, purpose, reactionaries, Richard Dawkins, Richard Sternberg, Stuart Burgess, teleology, Tufts University
He has assembled a global community of like-minded investigators who openly advocate teleological arguments harking back to Aristotle and Plato. Source
Read More

Physicist Brian Miller: The Non-Algorithmic Nature of Life

algorithms, Brian Miller, cognition, David Klinghoffer, decision-making, DNA, embryos, Evolution, genes, genetics, Harvard University, ID The Future, immaterial genome, information, Intelligent Design, life, Michael Levin, nucleotide alteration, physicalism, physicists, Plato's Revenge, Platonic forms, Podcast, purpose, René Thom, Richard Sternberg, scientific revolution, software, splicing, teleonomy, Tufts University
Immaterial? As in not material? It’s a daring proposition, to be sure, and one that has the power to change everything we understand about life. Source
Read More

Teleology: Anticipation and Necessity

anticipation, August Weismann, Bible, building blocks, Chance and Necessity, chipmunks, cognition, Design Inference, DNA, electromagnetism, Evolution, Faith & Science, Ferrari, final causality, flowering plants, Ford Mustang, Francis Crick, grizzly bear, immanent power, Intelligent Design, Isaac Newton, James Hutchison Stirling, Jaques Monod, natural selection, natural theology, necessity, nectar, perch, pollinators, representational directedness, rodent, Technology, telos, Thomas Aquinas, Thomism, tuna, Wiliam Dembski, wolf
Imagine a primordial grizzly bear on the northern edge of the forest adjacent to the Arctic. His soma senses the differences of the new environment. Source
Read More

Study Probes the Origins of Consciousness

Allen Brain Institute, Allison Parshall, anatomy, COGITATE, cognition, consciousness, decisions, Denyse O'Leary, Global Workspace Theory, Integrated information theory, Intelligent Design, Michael Egnor, Nautilus, neuroscience, Neuroscience & Mind, neuroscientists, prefrontal cortex, pseudoscience, Robert Chis-Ciure, Science Daily, The Immortal Mind, The New England Journal of Medicine, University of Sussex
Understanding consciousness by these means is going to be a much slower process than the researchers had hoped. Source
Read More

Information Processing: An Unnatural Attribute of Life

atoms, biology, biomolecular activities, biosignature, Brian Miller, cell, choices, chromosomes, cognition, dance, David Coppedge, decision-making, DNA, enzymes, Evolution, extraterrestrial life, information, information processing, Intelligent Design, limbic system, living systems, natural processes, primitive, response, sense, unnatural
The purpose-driven responsiveness of living systems to information appears as a truly confounding enigma for naturalistic explanations Source
Read More

The Math Behind the Immaterial Genome 

algorithm, algorithmic information, carbohydrates, cognition, David Klinghoffer, death, deformations, development, DNA, egg, embryo, embryology, Evolution, fetus, genes, immaterial genome, infant, information, instructions, Intelligent Design, lipids, mathematics, mutations, Mycoplasma genitalium, Plato, Plato's Revenge, preformationist, proteins, Richard Sternberg, RNA, scientific reasoning, simulation software package, trans-computational, zygote
While not a formal defense, this analysis aims to give readers an intuitive grasp of the reasoning behind Richard Sternberg's Platonic perspective. Source
Read More

Are Plants Cognitive, Intelligent Beings?

audible range, botany, cognition, Darwinism, David G. Robinson, ecologists, EMBO Reports, emotions, Frantisek Baluška, infection, intelligence, Life Sciences, Louvre, mathematics, Neuroscience & Mind, panpsychism, plants, random mutations, spirituality, Tel Aviv University, teleology, Third Way of Evolution, University of Heidelberg, water deprivation, ZME Science
Some plant biologists want to see them that way; others continue to insist on a Darwinian view. Source
Read More

Is the Cell a Machine, or More Like a Mind? 

Barbara McClintock, cell, cellular architecture, cellular behavior, cellular cognition, Chance and Necessity, circuitry, cognition, conformation, Daniel Nicholson, DNA, electronic circuitry, function, functional promiscuity, Intelligent Design, intracellular transport, Jacques Monod, Journal of Theoretical Biology, lymphotactin, machine, machine conception of the cell, machine metaphor, membranes, molecular biology, neural circuitry, Neuroscience & Mind, nucleic acids, proteins, self-assembly, Sewall Wright, wiring
At least as we’re accustomed to thinking in our age of AI, the alternative to a machine is a mind. Source
Read More