03Mar 2024 by Post

War on Human Exceptionalism Turns to Tool Use

Abigail Desmond, abstraction, animals, archaeologists, bragging rights, capuchin monkeys, chimpanzees, crows, debris, dolphins, environment, hands, Harvard University, human exceptionalism, Human Origins, life forms, Michael Haslam, monkeys, Neuroscience & Mind, octopuses, Oxford University, Saturn V rocket, sea urchins, tool use, tools
As the academic war on human exceptionalism motors on, researchers’ thinking sometimes shorts out — and they don’t even notice. Source
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22Feb 2024 by Post

Reply to Free Will Deniers: Show Me

auto accident, behavior, Belief, brains, Chemistry, choice, Clarence Darrow, Culture & Ethics, Darwinian evolution, deterministic free will, faith, free will, free will deniers, ham sandwich, human beings, Jerry Coyne, LARPing, Ludwig Wittgenstein, materialists, Meaning, Neuroscience & Mind, parking lot, philosophers, physics, physiology, Politics, rain, Robert Sapolsky, Sam Harris, Stephen Cave, The Blue Book
If you carelessly dent a genuine free will denier’s car in a parking lot, he wouldn’t hold you responsible any more than he’d hold your car responsible. Source
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17Feb 2024 by Post

Ants “Think” Differently from Humans

algorithms, Animal Algorithms, anternet, ants, bees, Biosphere 2, communication, Deborah M. Gordon, entomologists, Eric Cassell, Europe, exoskeleton, honeydew, intelligence, John Whitfield, Life Sciences, Lost Animals, Neuroscience & Mind, pheromones, scent signals, South American, space exploration, Stanford University, termites, terrarium, wasps
There are some 20 quadrillion ants living in the world today. All species of ants are social; there are no known solitary ants. Source
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11Feb 2024 by Post

Top Five Questions on the Origin of Language — Answered!

Afroasiatic languages, Anthony Esolen, Arabic, Artificial Intelligence, Books, brains, Chinese, computer-based theory, creoles, Danny Hieber, Discover Magazine, Dutch, editors, English, Evolution, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, language family, languages, linguists, Lucy Tu, materialist theories, Miami, Neuroscience & Mind, oldest language, Phillip M. Carter, pidgins, Proto-Sino-Tibetan, quantum physics, Richard Futrell, Scientific American, second foreign language, software, South Florida, Spanish, Tamil, University of California Irvine, writers
We aren’t even sure which is the world’s oldest spoken language, though Hebrew, Arabic, and Chinese have impressively long histories. Source
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09Feb 2024 by Post

Deep Fakes and Propaganda for Artificial General Intelligence

algorithms, artificial general intelligence, Artificial Intelligence, authenticity, computing machines, Culture & Ethics, deep fakes, deep learning, deep neural networks, democracy, discriminator, fabrications, generative adversarial networks, generator, historical figures, image manipulation, images, information integrity, lip-sync accuracy, Neuroscience & Mind, personal privacy, public opinion, robot, Security, table tennis, trust, Videos, Wizard of Oz
The video shows a supposed table tennis match between a robot and a top human player. Yet the video is not of an actual match. Source
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03Feb 2024 by Post

Researchers: Goats Can Read Basic Human Emotions

Alan McElligott, anger, animal feed, Christof Koch, City University of Hong Kong, contentedness, Dogs, Edward Feser, emotions, fear, goats, Heaven, horses, Intelligent Design, livestock, Marianne Mason, mind, moral choice, Neuroscience & Mind, philosophers, Purzel, reason, soul, University of Hong Kong, University of Roehampton, voice
Readers may wonder at first whether this research was worth doing, but hang on. It turns out that goats can understand basic emotions by voice alone. Source
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02Feb 2024 by Post

Artificial General Intelligence: Machines vs. Organisms

Accelerating Change Conference, algorithm, An Idol for Destruction (series), Are We Spiritual Machines?, artificial general intelligence, Artificial Intelligence, brain, ChatGPT, Chinese, Chinese Room argument, computers, consciousness, COSM, Culture & Ethics, endogenous activity, George Gilder, Gottfried Leibniz, Jay Richards, John Searle, John Smart, jumbo jet, machines, Marvin Minsky, Mastery (book), Michael Denton, Monadology, Moore’s law, Neuroscience & Mind, organisms, Ray Kurzweil, Robert Greene, Stanford University, Telecosm, The Age of Intelligent Machines, The Age of Spiritual Machines, Thomas Ray, Turing Machine, Venice
It may seem that I’m picking too much on Ray Kurzweil. But he and I have been crossing paths for a long time. Source
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31Jan 2024 by Post

Artificial General Intelligence: AI’s Temptation to Theft Over Honest Toil

An Idol for Destruction (series), Artificial Intelligence, Bertrand Russell, chess, Elon Musk, environments, human work, Intelligent Design, Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy, Los Angeles, machines, Neuroscience & Mind, Robert J. Marks, self-driving cars, software, Technology, Tesla, virtual railroad, Walter Isaacson, West Virginia
The worry is — and it’s a legitimate worry — that our environments will increasingly be altered to accommodate AI. Source
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29Jan 2024 by Post

Artificial General Intelligence: The Creation Exceeding the Creator

2001: A Space Odyssey, An Idol for Destruction (series), Ansible, Arthur C. Clarke, artificial general intelligence, Back to the Future, Blaise Pascal, Book of Job, Cambridge University, Darwinian evolution, Dune, Einsteinian relativity, Erika DeBenedictis, Evolution, Ezekiel, Frank Herbert, garden of eden, gravity, H.G. Wells, hoverboards, idolaters, invisibility cloaks, Isaac Barrow, Isaac Newton, Isaiah, King of Tyre, large language models, light sabers, Lucifer, Morning Star, Neuroscience & Mind, Old Testament, physics, Reformation, Satan, science fiction, Star Trek, Star Wars, Stargate, teleportation, The Time Machine, Ursula K. Le Guin, wormholes, Yuval Harari
Is artificial intelligence at a tipping point, with AGI ready to appear in real time? Or is AGI more like many other themes of science fiction? Source
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