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(For
an Article Title only version, go HERE)
Subject headings: Evolution,
Religion & Atheism • Cognition • Artificial
Life • Artificial Intelligence
EVOLUTION, RELIGION & ATHEISM
Adams,
Douglas
Is There
an Artificial God?
"In
honour of Douglas Adams' memory, MachinesLikeUs.com presents
the transcript of his speech given at Digital Biota 2, held at
Magdelene College Cambridge, in September 1998. Douglas presented
this "off the cuff," which only magifies his genius."
Almond,
Paul
Can
God Exist Outside of Space-time?
"Many
theists claim that God exists outside of space-time and created
it. This article will show that such a claim is questionable
and at least needs qualification to be regarded as meaningful."
Dawkins,
Richard
Collateral
Damage 1: Embryos and Stem Cell Research
"It
is possible to justify civilian casualties of war, if you can
make a good ‘lesser of two evils’ case. In Donald
Rumsfeld’s charming phraseology, ‘stuff happens’:
civilian deaths are ‘collateral damage.’ In this
article, I shall compare two kinds of collateral damage – civilians
as casualties of war, and embryos as casualties of stem cell
research – demonstrating the hypocrisy of those who happily
condone the first while vetoing the second. It is worse than
hypocrisy, because of the grotesque inequality in suffering
caused by the two cases."
Collateral
Damage 2
"Religious
apologists will try to persuade you that, without scriptural
texts, we’d have no moral compass, no guidelines for what
is right and what is wrong. Anybody who advocates basing our
morals on the Bible has not read the Bible with sufficient attention."
Why
There Almost Certainly Is No God
"We
explain our existence by a combination of the anthropic principle
and Darwin's principle of natural selection. That combination
provides a complete and deeply satisfying explanation for everything
that we see and know. Not only is the god hypothesis unnecessary.
It is spectacularly unparsimonious. Not only do we need no God
to explain the universe and life. God stands out in the universe
as the most glaring of all superfluous sore thumbs. We cannot,
of course, disprove God, just as we can't disprove Thor, fairies,
leprechauns and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. But, like those
other fantasies that we can't disprove, we can say that God is
very very improbable."
Floyd,
Chris
Belief
and Betrayal: The New Jahiliyyah
"The
history of almost every religion is a tragedy of betrayal:
the betrayal of the radical, egalitarian vision of its founders
by generations of powerful elites, who twist and pervert the
original principles in order to augment their own status, wealth
and dominion."
Ellis,
Albert
The
Case Against Religion
"In
this article psychotherapist Albert Ellis proposes that all
religions are a form of neurosis, and should be treated as
such by therapists."
Harris,
Sam
There
is No God (And You Know It)
"Atheism
is not a philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it
is simply a refusal to deny the obvious. Unfortunately, we
live in a world in which the obvious is overlooked as a matter
of principle."
Science
Must Destroy Religion
"The
conflict between religion and science is inherent and (very
nearly) zero-sum. The success of science often comes at the
expense of religious dogma; the maintenance of religious
dogma always comes at the expense of science. It is time
we conceded a basic fact of human discourse: either a person
has good reasons for what he believes, or he does not."
McFadden,
Johnjoe
Bravo! We're
Decoded But a Mystery Still
"Like
many other great discoveries, the release
of the entire human genome sequence left
scientists asking at least as many questions
as finding answers. If, as the data show,
we have only three times as many genes as
a fruit fly and probably only a few hundred
more than a mouse, what's the big deal about
being human?"
How
to Live Longer
"While
we are not programmed to die, it is also true that our genes
have not been designed for long life. If we really wish to
banish genetic diseases, including the ageing process, then
we must overcome our fears of dabbling in our own genome."
Our
Genes Are Doomed
"The
Queen has 'sparked a furious row' by investing in a bio-pharmaceutical
firm, ReNeuron. One of the firm's alleged crimes is that it
has supported legislation allowing the cloning of human embryos.
Whatever the merits of this particular case, the fact remains
that, if mankind is to escape an enfeebled future, we must
embrace this scary technology."
Sowing
the Seeds of a Better Future
"Genetic
manufacturing technology can benefit the poor, but the
western anti-technology lobby is busy trying to prevent
its use. Publication of the rice gene genome shows how
science, in the hands of developing world scientists,
can be a liberating influence for mankind. It's about
time western lobbyists let them get on with it."
The
Kindness of Strangers
"Why
should animals help out stricken humans – does it prove
that altruism is a natural instinct?
The
Origin of All Life
"We
are on the brink of a new adventure – quantum biology – that
will bring about the synthesis of physical and biological
sciences through quantum mechanics."
The Proteome
"The
announcement of the completion of the first draft of the human
genome project was hailed as a scientific revolution, every
bit as significant as the first man on the moon. It was a massive
achievement. But, compared to putting a man on the moon, it
did not develop any new technologies."
The
Unselfish Gene
"The
new biology is reasserting the primacy of the whole organism – the
individual – over the behaviour of isolated genes."
Miller,
Harlan B.
Science,
Ethics, and Moral Status
"The concerns of science are not
limited to covering facts; the facts are also to
be explained. Inattention to this essential part of the
mission of
science contributes to the mistaken belief that moral
philosophy (and philosophy in general) is radically
unlike science."
Schempp,
Ellery
Warning:
Gravity is "Only a Theory"
"Overall,
the Theory of Universal Gravity is just not an
attractive theory. It is based on borderline
evidence, has many serious gaps in what it claims
to explain, is clearly wrong in important respects,
and has social and moral deficiencies. If taught
in the public schools, by mis-directed "educators," it
has to be balanced with alternative, more attractive
theories with genuine gravamen and spiritual
gravitas."
Singham,
Mano
Agnostic
or Atheist?
"I
have noticed that people are shocked
when someone says that he/she is an atheist,
they are a lot more comfortable with
you saying that you are an agnostic.
As a result some people might call themselves
agnostics just to avoid the raised eyebrows
that come with being seen as an atheist,
lending support to the snide comment
that "an agnostic is a cowardly
atheist."
Burden
of Proof 1
"If
a religious person asks me to prove that god does not exist,
I freely concede that I cannot do so. The best that I can do
is to invoke the Laplacian principle that I have no need of
hypothesizing god's existence to explain things."
Burden
of Proof 2: What Constitutes Evidence for God?
"If
a religious person is asked for evidence
of god's existence, the type of evidence
presented usually consist of religious
texts, events that are inexplicable
according to scientific laws (i.e.,
miracles), or personal testimonies
of direct experience of god."
Burden
of Proof 3: The Role of Negative Evidence
"If
you propose the existence of something
like electromagnetic radiation or
neutrinos or N-rays, then you have
to provide some positive evidence
that it exists of a kind that others
can try to replicate. But not all
assertions, even in science, need
meet that positive evidence standard.
Sometimes negative evidence, what
you don't see, is important too."
Can
We Ever Be Certain About Scientific Theories?
"What
does it mean to "test" a
theory? And can scientists ever "verify" a
theory and "be certain" about
it?"
Choosing
the God We Want
"Believers
in a god will often explain away
disturbing facts by arguing that
we mere mortals cannot really
understand god's ineffable plan,
but at the same time argue that
they know god's nature. The reality
is that people are choosing a
god that is congenial to their
world-view."
"Christian"
Country?
"When
some people claim that the US is a "Christian" country,
they may have a point. In the August 2005 issue of the
invaluable Harper's Magazine, Bill McKibben provides
some statistics that indicate that the US is "among
the most spiritually homogeneous rich nations on earth.
But
the interesting point about McKibben's article The
Christian Paradox: How a faithful nation gets Jesus wrong is that what all these believers mean by being "Christian" may
not bear much resemblance to what Jesus actually preached.
In fact, what is conspicuous is the widespread ignorance
about the religion and the leader they purport to follow."
Creationism
and Moral Decay
"ID
advocates and young-Earth creationists
hostile to the teaching of
evolutionary theory feel it
implies a lack of special status
for human beings. They further
believe that the teaching of
evolution leads to atheism,
which in turn has led to the
current state of moral decay
in the United States. Even
taking this narrow view of
morality, it is not clear that
America is any less moral now
than it was, say, fifty or
more years ago."
Cults
and Religions: Should a Mormon be President?
"The
question of cults versus religions came up in the context
of speculations about Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney
seeking the Republican nomination for president in 2008.
It turns out that he is a Mormon and some have suggested
that the country is not ready for a Mormon president,
alleging that the Church of the Latter Day Saints is
a cult. Why
should believing in Mormonism be considered outside the
bounds of acceptability while believing in Christianity
or Judaism or Islam is not? For that matter, why is the
Church of Scientology or the Unification Church or the
Hare Krishnas seen as so outlandish by many people?"
Dover's
Dominos: Why Intelligent Design Creationism Will Lose
"Much
of the religious opposition
to Darwin's theory has been
based on the claim that it
promotes atheism. This is
not quite correct. There
are, after all, many religious
biologists. What Darwin's
theory does is remove whatever
remaining necessity people
might have felt for a god
hypothesis, leaving it up
to the individual to decide
whether to believe in a god
or not. Clearly, this removal
of a major argument for the
existence of god is likely
to result in greater atheism,
but the goal of those who
teach evolutionary theory
is not to promote atheism.
It is to teach the best science."
Emotional
Reactions to Darwin
"There
is no doubt that Darwin's ideas
about evolution by natural selection carry a huge emotional
impact. For many people the idea that "we are descended
from apes" is too awful to contemplate and is sufficient
reason alone to dismiss any claim that natural selection
holds the key to understanding how we came about. (Of
course, we are not descended from apes. The
more accurate statement is that apes and humans share
common ancestors, making them our cousins, but even this
refinement does not take away the stigma that supposedly
comes with being biologically related to animals such
people consider inferior.)"
End
of the Road for Intelligent Design?
"On
December 19, 2005, the
federal judge in the Dover,
PA case ruled that the
school board's action in
trying to introduce intelligent
design creationism (IDC)
ideas into its science
curriculum violates the
Establishment Clause and
is thus unconstitutional.
What I had not expected
was that the judge's ruling
would be so sweeping and
comprehensive."
Evolution
and Atheism
"It
is commonly charged by some religious people that acceptance
of the theory of evolution by natural selection implies
acceptance of atheism. Of
course, this feeling of incompatibility between Christianity
and evolution is not empirically confirmed because many Christians
have no personal difficulties reconciling belief in god with
acceptance of natural selection."
Evolution:
The Bad, the Good, and the Ugly
"First
the bad (and somewhat old)
news. In a 2001 survey,
the National Science Foundation
found that only 53 percent
of Americans agreed with
the statement: 'human beings,
as we know them, developed
from earlier species of
animals.'"
Free Will
"If the mind is an entity that exists
independently of the brain and which can influence the brain,
then one can think
of free will as a product of the mind. But is free will
compatible with the idea that the brain is all there is?"
Global
Warming
"One would think that global warming
is one scientific question where politics would play a minor
role, and where the debate would be based on purely scientific
evidence and judgments.... Hence it is surprising that some
people (including the Bush administration) perceive the case
being made that global warming is a serious problem as some
kind of 'liberal' plot, tarring the proponents of the idea
that global warming is real and serious as political enemies,
seeking to somehow destroy truth, justice, and the American
way."
IDC
Gets On Board the Brain Train
"An article titled Religion
on the Brain
in the May 26, 2006 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education examined
what neuroscientists are discovering about religion and the
brain. It is a curious
article. The author (Richard Monastersky) seems to be trying
very hard to find evidence in support of the idea that brain
research is pointing to the independent existence of a soul/mind,
but it is clear on reading it that he comes up short and that
there is no such evidence, only the hopes of a very small minority
of scientists."
Intelligent
Design Creationism Movement Loses Support in Kansas
"Back in November 2005, a 6-4
majority of Republicans on the Kansas State Board of Education
inserted pro-IDC language into the state's science standards,
going so far as to even write a definition of science to
include supernatural explanations for phenomena. But yesterday,
that policy received a setback in primary elections when
two seats of that six-person majority group went to Republicans
who opposed what their party colleagues had done."
Israel
and the Palestinians
"Until
people realize that their allegiance to their nationality or
ethnicity or religion has the same superficial significance
as support for their favorite sports team, we will continue
to have wars, with people having this bizarre notion that it
is actually noble to kill or die for their flag, their race,
and their god."
Is
the U.S. a 'Christian Nation'?
"The
founders took great pains to keep the fundamentalists of their
time (the Puritans) from having too great an influence over
civic life because they were well aware of the damage this
could do. This attitude is refreshing when compared to the
attitudes of current politicians who fall over themselves in
pandering to the Falwells and Robertsons and Dobsons,
while shutting their eyes to their messages of intolerance."
It's
the Rael Thing
"The
Raelians agree with the IDC people's argument that Darwin's
theory of evolution as descent with modification (using the
mechanism of random mutation and natural selection) is wrong
because life on Earth is too complex to have evolved that way
and must have been designed. But unlike the IDC people, they
not only know who did the designing but are not hesitant to
proclaim the news. It is not god. It is extra-terrestrials."
Looking
for Deep Ancestors
"To
see the whole of the evolution of life going backwards
and merging together was a nice new way of seeing the
process. Those of you who are interested in the grand
sweep of evolution written for a non-specialist will
find Dawkins' book [The Ancestor's Tale] a great resource."
Natural
Selection and Moral Decay
"This
article asks the question:
Why are religious fundamentalists
so militant in trying
to have evolution not
taught in schools,
or have its teaching
undermined by inserting
fake cautions about
its credibility?"
Our Common
Ancestors
"I
don't know about you, but to me there is something extraordinarily
beautiful about this idea that at one point in time we
all shared the same single ancestor, and that some time
further back, everyone who lived at that time was the
ancestor of all of us. It seems to be such a decisive
argument against tribalism. It is hard to maintain the
idea that some groups of people are 'special' in some
way, when we not only all descended from a single animal
Henry, but that at a later time we all shared the same
set of human ancestors. Not only that, but we are also
cousins of all the species that currently exist."
Paley's
Watch, Mount Rushmore, and Other Stories of Intelligent Design
"This
idea that it should
be obvious to anyone
when something is
designed and when
it is not permeates
the literature of
the IDC movement
and variations of
the Mount Rushmore
argument is brought
up repeatedly because
it provides a concrete
image of the idea
and has a simple
persuasiveness."
Religion's
Last Stand: The Brain
"The crucial question for the sustaining
of religious beliefs is the relationship of the mind to the brain.
Is the mind purely a creature of the brain, and our thoughts and
decisions merely the result of the neurons firing in our neuronal
networks? If so, the mind is essentially a material thing. We may
have ideas and thoughts and a sense of consciousness and free will
that seem to be nonmaterial, but that is an illusion."
Religion's
Last Stand, Part 2: The Role of Descartes
"The scientist-philosopher Rene Descartes
of "I
think, therefore I am" fame was perhaps the first person
to formulate this mind-body dualism, but he realized immediately
that it raises the problem of how the non-material mind/soul
can interact with the material
brain/body to get it to do things."
Seeing
the World Through Darwin's Eyes
"What
would have further fuelled Darwin's doubts about special creation
was the increasing awareness, even in his own time, that large
numbers of species had already gone extinct. It is now estimated
that over 90% of all species that ever existed are no longer
around. If god was creating each species specially to suit
the available environmental niches, explaining extinction becomes
problematic."
Sexual
Selection
"I
learned from Richard
Dawkins' book The
Ancestor's Tale (2004) that two things
can be considered different species even if they are
perfectly capable of producing fertile offspring. All
that is required for them to be considered to be different
species is that they are not found to mate in the
wild for whatever reason."
Should
Secularists Fight for 100% of Church and State?
"Should
atheists be concerned about religious symbolism in the
public sphere such as placing nativity scenes on government
property at Christmas or placing tablets of the Ten Commandments
in courthouses, both of which have been the subjects
of heated legal struggles involving interpretations of
the First Amendment to the constitution? If those symbols
mean nothing to us, why should we care where they appear?"
The
Bible as History: Enter Modern Archeology
"Religious
texts, whatever the religion, are unlikely to be reliable
sources of history. Their authors are not disinterested
writers. They are usually religious people, perhaps priests
and leaders or scribes working under their direction, and
are essentially trying to provide a rationale for people
to believe in that religion and to provide authority for
religious leaders to enforce discipline on their members.
It is in their interest to embellish the historical accounts
in order to legitimize the status quo, to give people a
sense of inevitability about their status, and to provide
legitimacy to the priestly class."
The
Bible as History: How Science Unearths the Past
"The
two main tools that are available for trying to piece together
the real history of Biblical times are those of literary
analysis and archeology. In the former, the analysts carefully
examine texts for literary clues as to the dates and places
where events are reported to have occurred. In the latter,
fieldwork in the area tries to find concrete evidence of
the rise and fall and migration of societies. And when
the two methods are combined, it becomes possible to reconstruct
events and see what Biblical stories hold up and what don't."
The
Bible as History: Why the Bible Was Invented
"The
Bible should not be taken seriously as history. Instead
it should be seen more as a guide to what, at various times
in the past, people believed, how they perceived themselves,
and how they wanted to be perceived by others."
The
Book of Revelations and the Rapture
"The
sins for which people are fingered to be slaughtered at the
end of the world are sexual sins (fornication, homosexuality)
or those of apostasy and blasphemy. Once again, it seems
as if the only sins worth the name are those involving sex
and violations of religious orthodoxy."
The
Desire for Belief Preservation
"Did
I give up my
belief because
I could not satisfactorily
answer the difficult
questions concerning
god? Or did I
start asking
those questions
only after I
had given up
belief in god?
In some sense
this is a chicken-and-egg
problem. Looking
back, it is hard
to say. Probably
it was a little
of both."
The
Devil in the Details
"Scientific answers to the big
questions and the universal laws themselves are found by looking
at the details, at how these things manifest themselves in
specific concrete situations which can be studied under controlled
conditions."
The
Dubious Appeal of Immortality
"Despite
all the emphasis
on going to
heaven as the
main point
of living,
the Bible contains
very few actual
descriptions
of the place
and what people
there actually
do."
The
Origin of Life
"Darwin's
theory of evolution by natural selection deals with the question
of how life evolves and does not directly address the question
of the origin of life itself. The fields of cosmology and
physics and chemistry have provided models of how the universe
evolved and created the solar system, among other things.
But those theories do not explain how organic molecules,
the basic building blocks of life, came about."
The
Role of Emotion in Maintaining Religion
"Marx
was accurate with his metaphor of opium for religion. It
not only takes away pain, it also dulls the will to action.
Perhaps religion persists because it is a form of addiction,
removing us from the realm of reality just as effectively
as heroin or cocaine, and is just as hard to relinquish."
The
Role of Emotion in Maintaining Religion: A Follow Up
"There
were some very interesting comments to the original article
on this topic that I would urge people to read. There was
one point raised that I realized required a much more extended
response. In that comment Corbin questioned some of my conclusions
and asked 'Is there really evidence to support Marx's
claim that religious persons and societies are more docile
and more likely to simply endure social injustice?' "
The
Warmongers
"While
many people will be appalled at the idea of widening the
conflict, there is one other particular group that is positively
salivating at the prospect, and deliriously awaiting increased
chaos and bloodshed. These are our old friends, those people
who believe in the 'rapture' and think that the Armageddon
that signals the second coming of Jesus should arrive any
day now."
Wanted:
'Godwin's Law'-Type Rule for Science
"Mike
Godwin coined
a law (now
known as
Godwin's
Law) that
states: 'As
an online
discussion
grows longer,
the probability
of a comparison
involving
Nazis or
Hitler approaches
one.' This
might be
a good model
to follow
in finding
a resolution
to the interminable
discussions
over whether
so-called
'intelligent
design' theory
(ID) is a
part of science."
What
is Science?
"Because
of my interest in the history and philosophy of science I am
sometimes called upon to answer the question "what is
science?" Most people think that the answer should be
fairly straightforward. This is because science is such an
integral part of our lives that everyone feels that they intuitively
know what it is and think that the problem of defining science
is purely one of finding the right combination of words that
captures their intuitive sense."
What
Makes Us Good at Learning Some Things and Not Others?
"Why
are some
people
drawn
to some
areas
of study
and not
to others?
Why do
they
find
some
things
difficult
and others
easy?
Is it
due to
the kind
of teaching
that
one receives
or parental
influence
or some
innate
quality
like
genes?"
What
the Neuroscience Community Thinks About the Mind/Brain
Relationship
"The flagging intelligent design
creationism (IDC) movement seems to be hoping for some fresh
energy to emerge from the work of psychiatric researcher
Dr. Schwartz. Or at the very least they may be hoping that
they can persuade the public that the mind does exist independently
of the brain. But they are going to have a hard time getting
traction for this idea within the neurobiology community.
There seems to be a greater degree of unanimity among them
about the material basis of the mind than there is among
biologists about the sufficiency of natural selection."
When
God Talks to People
"Suppose
someone said that Abraham Lincoln spoke to [god]
on a regular basis. Since Christians believe in an afterlife,
they should have as little difficulty believing in this
as in believing that god speaks to people. But anyone
claiming to have cozy chats with old Abe would be immediately
looked upon askance, and such an assertion would cast
serious doubt on their sanity. But a similar statement
about god speaking to them does not raise the same warning
flags. Assertions by some people that god speaks to them
are received with an indulgent smile but are not openly
dismissed as crazy, either. Why is this?"
When
the Going Gets Tough, IDC Gets Weird
"Along
with
Mount
Rushmore,
the
bacterial
flagellum
is
another
IDC
staple,
a poster
child
for
intelligent
design,
and
is
trotted
out
repeatedly
at
every
opportunity.
The
amazing
thing
is
that
it
was
first
introduced
by
Behe
in
1996
as
an
example
of
design,
and
they
keep
plugging
it
over
and
over
even
though
evolutionary
biologists
have
strongly
challenged
his
assertion
that
its
appearance
is
inexplicable
according
to
natural
selection."
Where
Was God During the Tsunami?
"I
recently
moderated
a
panel
discussion
(sponsored
by
the
Hindu
Students
Association
and
the
Religion
Department
at
Case)
on
the
topic
of
theodicy
(theories
to
justify
the
ways
of
God
to
people,
aka "why
bad
things
happen
to
good
people")
in
light
of
the
devastation
wreaked
by
the
tsunami,
which
killed
an
estimated
quarter
million
people."
Why
is Evolutionary Theory So Upsetting to Some?
"One
of the questions that sometimes
occur to observers of the intelligent
design (ID) controversy is why
there is such hostility to evolutionary
theory in particular. After all,
if you are a Biblical literalist,
you are pretty much guaranteed
to find that the theories of
any scientific discipline (physics,
chemistry, geology, astronomy,
in addition to biology) contradict
many of the things taught in
the Bible."
Why
Religious (And Other Ideas) Are So Persistent
"Since
for most of us, the religious
'explanations' of the big questions
of life, death, and meaning
are the ones we are first exposed
to as children – and
they do provide a rudimentary
explanatory pattern (even if
in a selective and superficial
way) – we
tend to accept them as true
and thus do not actively look
for, and even avoid, alternative
explanations."
Why
Small Problems Create the Most Difficulty for Christians
"Scientists can and do also hold on
to theories in the face of counter evidence. They too often
consider
unsolved problems
to be solvable but yet unknown. The difference is that for
them, they do not accept this as the final word. They keep
chipping away at the unexplained, generating new evidence as
they go.... That is why scientific theories keep evolving.
In the case of religion, though, there is no such collective
tipping point."
COGNITION
Chatham,
Chris
King
of the Cortex: Anterior PFC
"As
enigmatic as prefrontal function seems to be, the
anterior portions of prefrontal
cortex (aPFC) are even more mysterious. This results partly
from the fact that aPFC is particularly difficult to access
and study electrophysiologically in nonhuman primates, as
Ramnani and Owen note in their
2004 Nature Reviews Neuroscience article, and
so detailed neuroanatomical investigations of aPFC have been
conducted only recently. The authors report how this work
has led to a breakthrough in the understanding of aPFC's
computations."
The
Myth of Infantile Amnesia
"Freud
famously suggested that infantile amnesia is an active
suppression of early traumatic memories. However, a review
of the modern cognitive literature suggests that at least
in some ways, infantile amnesia may actually be a myth."
Cole,
Juan
Of
Mushrooms and Peak Experiences
"The
human mind has the capacity to feel the oneness of things,
to put aside selfish ego and the violence, psychic and
physical, that it promotes. The drug just demonstrates
that the capacity is there. This was known. The question
is, what one does with it."
Hankins,
Peter
A Genuine
Problem
"The
problem with the Hard Problem (how do we square our ineffable,
subjective experience of the world with the mechanical
reality described by physics), they say, is that we tend
to regard subjective experiences as being out there in
the same sort of way as physical objects. This makes it
hard for us to understand how our two pictures of the world
can be reconciled. We end up looking for a mysterious missing
ingredient in subjective experience, but that search is
hopeless. Researchers Jack
Robbins and Roepstorff suggest
the difference between the two accounts of the world arises
from our using
two
different brain modules: one aimed at the world in general,
one aimed specifically at phenomenal states."
All
Done With Mirrors
"We’ve
known for some time the relatively unsurprising fact that
certain groups of neurons fire whenever an experimental
subject performs a certain action. More recently it has
emerged that some of these neurons also fire when the subject
sees someone else performing the same action. These mirror
neurons are clearly interesting in a number of ways, but
perhaps the most striking is that they appear
to provide a
clear neurological basis for empathy, and perhaps for the ability
humans (and a few other animals) have to reason successfully about
other points of view."
A
Spectrum of Consciousness
"There are
many, many different ways of implementing consciousness, each
with its own advantages and weaknesses, and it may well be
that lots of them have been tried out during the course of
evolution. So say Rodrick Wallace and Roger G. Wallace, in
a
full of daunting mathematics and airy speculations."
Consciousness
and Relativity: A Critique of Richard Pico's Biological
Relativity Theory
"Persistence,
in Pico's view, is what characterises life: more debatably,
he characterises it as
a 'frame of reference'. It certainly establishes a kind of
physico-chemical baseline within cells, but that seems
to bear only a metaphorical relation to the 'frames of reference'
proposed by relativity."
Consciousness
Yet to Come
"John
Stewart has written an interesting paper on the future
of consciousness – where will evolution take
it next? His discussion is strongly rooted in the Global
Workspace theory, but even if you don’t subscribe
to that school of thought it makes good sense.The prime
function of consciousness, he says, is to give us new
and ultimately better adaptive responses. In his view,
it is the Global Workspace that allows the human mind
to bring together resources which were not previously
linked, but which can be used together in new and effective
ways..."
Dimensions
of Mind
"A
short paper by Gray, Gray and Wegner in Science recently
sets out the results of an interesting survey of how people
view minds. People were asked to make comparisons amongst
a strange group of 13 miscellaneous entities, rating them
against a series of criteria. The
main finding is that people seem to rank minds along two
scales rather than one."
Does
'Consciousness' Exist?
"Once,
straightforward dualism was the unquestioned orthodoxy:
there were physical objects and spiritual objects and
a great gulf lay between the two. Souls basically did
the perceiving and the physical world did the being-perceived.
Over time, however, the gulf began to close and the
two sides began to get closer. But although the prevailing
orthodoxy became increasingly monist, a distinction
was always maintained, eventually boiling down to the
difference between subject and object: and that difference
is, in a word, consciousness. Subjects possess this
mysterious substance, objects do not."
Idealist
Consciousness
"Most
of those who have views about consciousness seem to be
monist materialists. Indeed,
the essential problem of consciousness is often formulated
as being how we reconcile it with materialist physics, without
any expectation of anyone’s asking why we should want
to. An embattled minority still rally round the dualist flag,
but that ’s more or less it so far as popular metaphysical
options are concerned. But popularity
isn’t
everything, and there is of course another position with
an impeccable philosophical pedigree in the shape of idealism,
the view most famously propounded by Bishop Berkeley with
the maxim ‘to be is to be perceived’."
I
Feel It In My Blood
"The
idea of blood as the animating feature of the mind has
acquired a modern echo of sorts in the theory put forward
by Kenneth J. Dillon, namely that red blood cells provide
the basic mechanism for a magnetoreceptive system that
many animals possess to some degree: in human beings
its clarity as a sense is somewhat clouded over, but
it plays a vital role in the generation of consciousness."
Ignorance
is the Answer
"Daniel
Stoljar’s new book Ignorance and Imagination makes
a case for slug-like ignorance as the solution to our
problems with consciousness. The real reason we have
trouble with reconciling conscious experience with brute
physical reality, he says, is that we just don’t
know enough."
Implicature
"Conversational
implicature – invented by H.P.Grice – describes
the inferences we make which are vital to understanding
each other. Grice proposed that in order to work out what
other people are getting at, we take it for granted that
when they talk to us they are normally going to follow
certain rules, or maxims. These
maxims help us express ourselves briefly without fear of being
misunderstood. If someone tells you your horse came in either
first or fourth, for example, you are entitled to assume, without
his saying so, that he does not know which it was (unless other
evidence suggests he is deliberately being annoying)."
Magic
Scanners
"The
New Scientist’s special 50th birthday issue has a number
of interesting pieces: Roger Penrose on the nature of reality,
Patricia Churchland on free will, and others. It also includes
a piece from Nick Bostrom, Director of the Future of Humanity
Institute at Oxford, offering an argument to show that it
is highly likely that we are all, in fact, living in a computer
simulation."
Me Do
It
"Don’t
look at I: me is doing all the work. To hell with grammar:
that’s the point about consciousness, at least according
to Tor Nørretranders. I must admit my heart sank just
slightly when I first saw the title of his book The User
Illusion. So many people want to denounce the self as
an illusion these days! I think it’s actually rather
hard to deny that my self has some real substance – for
most purposes selfhood seems to be an inoffensive, if not
essential means of distinguishing between matters bearing
on one human animal rather than all the others. Some of the
sceptical arguments certainly have their appeal, but I generally
feel that the best of them question the nature, rather than
the existence, of the self."
Revisiting
Libet
"The experiments
carried out by Benjamin
Libet into the timing of conscious
awareness have provoked, and go on provoking, a vast amount
of discussion. His own theory of consciousness as a kind
of field has received somewhat less attention; and the strange
brain-cutting experiment he proposed to test it seems likely
to remain unperformed for the foreseeable future. A large
number of papers and discussions have been published; in
2004, Libet finally summarised his own account in the book,
Mind
Time."
Seeing
Red
"Nicholas
Humphrey recently produced a postscript to his book "Seeing
Red." He remarks with mild regret that some readers
perhaps will still not "get it": but if his
theory is true, that's only to be expected. If he's right,
the mysterious nature of qualia is really the point;
if they were easy to understand, they wouldn't do their
job properly – a tantalising suggestion."
Strange
Ideas
"In
grappling with deep philosophical issues we are sometimes
pushed towards theories we should never have adopted
for their own sake. The ideas presented here are classic
cases of this kind; if you find your theory leads you
into one of these positions, it's a sign that you need
to look again at your theory...."
The
Mind Gap
"A number
of moves to upgrade the official moral status of animals
have been debated in recent times: the Great
Ape Project,
for example, seeks to obtain recognition of three basic
legal rights for our nearer
relatives among the animals. Whether this is philosphically
a sound approach is open to doubt; Roger Scruton, at least,
has argued that since animals do not have moral duties,
they cannot have rights either. I find the idea that duties
and rights go together in this way very attractive: unfortunately,
I can’t see any compelling reason to think it’s
true."
Why
Be Conscious?
"A
good question. A paper
by Lee Pierson and Monroe Trout asks: what is consciousness
for? If consciousness has evolved in human beings, it
must have had some survival value, but what exactly was
it?"
Lehar,
Steven
The Constructive Aspect of Visual Perception:
A Gestalt Field Theory Principle of Visual Reification Suggests
a Phase Conjugate
"Many
Gestalt illusions reveal a constructive, or generative
aspect of perceptual processing where the experience
contains more explicit spatial information than the
visual stimulus on which it is based. The experience
of Gestalt illusions often appears as volumetric spatial
structures bounded by continuous colored surfaces embedded
in a volumetric space. These, and many other phenomena,
suggest a field theory principle of visual representation
and computation in the brain."
ARTIFICIAL
LIFE
Grand,
Steve
Anarchy
in Action
"To
the casual observer, school A was a model of organization,
and school B was a disaster, with higher noise levels,
no obvious structure and apparently no discipline. But
the casual observer would have been completely mistaken."
Battle
With GA Joe
"For
the past twenty years I’ve been advocating soft,
bottom-up, massively parallel computing techniques and
waging a war on top-down, serial, control-freak thinking.
Yet, just lately, I seem to have found myself becoming
increasingly disdainful of genetic algorithms and other
evolutionary software techniques."
Bubbles
in Cyberspace:
A Cellular Approach to Virtual Environments and Intelligent Synthetic Life
Forms
"This
paper discusses the interface between Artificial Life
and Virtual Reality, and argues that certain "biological" ideas
can and should permeate throughout the whole process,
from the creation of virtual life forms through to
the simulation of inanimate objects and overall virtual
environments. I assert that such a coherent and fully
integrated system is the best approach for the generation
of truly intelligent and properly grounded artificial
life. At the same time, I show how the modelling of
non-living objects and environments might benefit from
the application of those same biological principles."
Confessions
of a Cyber-God
"I
create artificial life. I apply my scientific skill to the
detailed and complex simulation of neurons, biochemicals
and genes, and then assemble them delicately and with care
into living, breathing virtual creatures. I nurture these
tiny defenseless souls into existence, place their miniature,
pulsating brains into their cute little heads. And then I
kill them."
Creatures:
An Excercise in Creation
"Take
one ordinary laboratory rat. Slice it half and watch. The
two parts may squirm for a while, but soon they’ll
stop moving forever. Why is this? The answer, of course,
is that some of the bits that the top half needs are now
disconnected in the bottom half and the rest are lying in
a sticky pool on the bench. The original rat was a tightly
integrated network of multiple sub-systems, and all those
parts were needed in order that the creature could live.
There is no such thing as half an organism."
Creatures:
Artificial Life Autonomous Software Agents for Home Entertainment
"This
paper discusses an interactive entertainment product based
on techniques developed in Artificial Life and Adaptive Behavior
research. The product, called Creatures, allows human users
to interact in real-time with synthetic agents which inhabit
a closed environment. The agents, known as "creatures," have
artificial neural networks for sensory-motor control and learning,
artificial biochemistries for energy metabolism and hormonal
regulation of behavior, and both the network and the biochemistry
are "genetically" specified to allow for the possibility
of evolutionary adaptation through sexual reproduction."
Curiosity
Created the Cat
"Whatever
is going on in a Robin’s head, no matter how trivial
we try to make it sound, it’s all happening inside
half a cubic inch of brain. That kind of processing power
just totally staggers me. Despite the obsession anthropologists
have with cranial capacity, size isn’t everything when
it comes to brainpower."
Delegate
Sensibilities
"I
originally thought I might share with you
some of the extraordinary new developments
in Artificial Life that were revealed during
the ALife VI conference. Unfortunately there
weren’t any, and that leaves me with
something of an embarrassing vacuum to fill."
Effing the
Ineffable: An Engineering Approach to Consciousness
"This
article supports the idea that synthesis,
rather than analysis, is the most powerful
and promising route towards understanding
the essence of brain function and consciousness – at
least, to the extent that consciousness
is capable of being understood at all.
It discusses ‘understanding by doing’,
outlines a methodology for the use of deep
computer simulation and robotics in pursuing
such a synthesis, and then briefly introduces
the author’s ongoing, long-term attempt
to build a neurologically plausible and
hopefully at least sub-conscious being,
who he hopes will eventually answer to
the name of Lucy."
Machines
Like Us
"The
following material is derived from the key note speech given
by Steve Grand, OBE, at the Applied Knowledge Research and
Innovation's Biennial Seminar on the 17th October 2002. Steve
is the Director of Cyberlife Research Ltd."
Moving
AI Out of its Infancy: Changing Our Preconceptions
"The
other day it was my turn to be asked
stupid questions about the movie ‘I,
Robot’. ‘Do you think it’s
about time we started incorporating Asimov’s
three laws into real robots?’ a
journalist asked. My reply was that Asimov’s
laws are about as relevant to real robotics
as leechcraft is to modern medicine."
Of Mountains
and Molehills
"I’m
writing this while perched on a hillside at 7000 feet on
a beautiful crystalline October morning, looking out across
a broad valley to the sunlit peaks of the Grand Teton range
in the Rocky Mountains. I tell you this fact, not because
it has the slightest relevance to the plot, but simply to
make you feel jealous."
The Year
2001 Bug: What Ever Happened to HAL?
"In
1950, Alan Turing made a prediction.
Within fifty years, he said, the idea
that machines can think will be commonplace
and computers will routinely pass the
Turing Test. Well, it’s now 1999,
so we in the AI business have only
one year left in which to make his
prediction come true. Bear in mind
that a mere twelve months after that,
the general public is going to be wondering
how we’re getting on with building
HAL. Forty-nine years down, only one
to go. Tricky!"
Three
Observations That Changed My Life
"Exactly
whose childhood do I remember? Why
is it that splashes leave only ripples?
Could I copy myself into a computer?
These three questions have, over
the years, shaped my perception of
the universe, of science, and above
all of artificial intelligence. The
first is a question about materialism,
the second about persistence, and
the third about simulation. My attempts
to answer them have brought me firmly
into the "strong" camps
of both AI and artificial life."
Where
Newton Went Wrong
"The
answers to all the scientific questions we could possibly ask
are sitting right in front of our noses, yet we don't see them.
Sometimes it's because they involve things that are too small,
too distant or otherwise lie outside the range of our senses.
However, more often it’s simply that we fail to notice
them."
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Almond,
Paul
AI
As a Boundary System
"This
article will propose a paradigm for dealing with the AI (artificial intelligence)
system suggested in my previous article How AI Would Work and
other articles. I recommend reading the previous article, or some of my other
articles about this AI system, before this article: otherwise it may not make
sense."
How
AI Would Work
"An
AI machine must construct a model and convert this modelling
information into planning and actions. When there is any distinction
between planning and modelling, conversion is an explicit process
and is a bottleneck through which all the information must
go. The sophistication of the modelling system is irrelevant
if the only affect that it can have on planning is that which
is permitted by an inefficient conversio | 
