Tag: Philosophy

Psychology: Our mind plays 'tricks' on us all the time
Psychology has come a long way since its early days in the understanding of how the human mind works. The reason being that when they were paid more, they felt they were being rewarded adequately and so the degree of interest in the material was less important to them, but when paid less, there would be no logical reason to engage in such a boring task, so the mind had to justify the experience and made it seem more interesting. In another example, if two groups of people are given the same type of microwave quality food, the group that pays more money for it will perceive it as tasting better because, according to CD, their minds could not tolerate paying a high price for bad food. The mind is capable of automatically altering its perceptions in order to reduce the possibility of dissonance, seemingly without the awareness of the individual...... (more)

Examining How Scientists Think
She is a Regents' Professor of Cognitive Science at the Georgia Institute of Technology with joint appointments in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts School of Public Policy and the College of Computing School of Interactive Computing. Nersessian is one of the pioneers of the interdisciplinary field of cognitive studies of science and technology, which comprises psychologists, philosophers of science, artificial intelligence researchers and cognitive anthropologists. So, I was inspired to study math and physics, but in retrospect this was the beginning of my life as a philosopher and cognitive scientist. I was hooked I changed to a double major in physics and philosophy, and headed to graduate school to study the philosophy of physics. (more)

How will we build an artificial human brain?
follow io9.comThere's an ongoing debate among neuroscientists, cognitive scientists, and even philosophers as to whether or not we could ever construct or reverse engineer the human brain. Regardless, it's fair to say that ongoing breakthroughs in brain science are steadily paving the way to the day when an artificial brain can be constructed from scratch. And if we assume that cognitive functionalism holds true as a theory the idea that our brains are a kind of computer there are two very promising approaches worth pursuing. One side wants to build a brain with code, while the other wants to recreate all the brain's important functions by emulating it on a computer. (more)

How the Brain Becomes Conscious
The Avatar is not imaginary or ethereal but rather has a clear physical existence in the form of unique impulse patterns in distributed brain circuits. It all begins in the womb, says Klemm. Klemms idea is that When active in wakefulness or dream states, the combinatorial impulse patterns that represent conscious self act as an agent of the brain, metaphorically as an Avatar. Each cortical column has the same circuitry of neurons and is extensively connected to many other columns, both adjacent and far away. (more)

Science fiction brings up religious conflicts
tool nameIn my previous column, I briefly described how I came to be interested in the film and literary genre of science fiction from the perspective of a religious practitioner, in my case, Roman Catholic Christianity, and how it could be a useful way of exploring issues such as the increasingly pervasive presence of technology in our world. Defining the human being is a way of trying to understand what human beings are as a foundation for understanding the purpose of human beings in the universe. More often in science fiction the nonhuman characters with human appearance are machines such as the cyborgs in the Terminator franchise, the cylons in the rebooted Battlestar Galactica and its spin-off, Caprica, or the replicants in the classic, Blade Runner, based on Philip Dicks novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Some science fiction works explore the human motivations behind the creation of such humanoid machines. (more)

A panel discussion about Artificial Intelligence.
The Charlie Rose Show television broadcast: A panel discussion about the latest developments in Artificial Intelligence with Rodney Brooks of MIT, Eric Horvitz of Microsoft Research and Ron Brachman of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. December 21, 2004. (more)

CSE Colloquia 2001 - Reasoning with Cause and Effect. Speaker: Judea Pearl, University of California, Los Angeles..
"This talk [given by Judea Pearl, University of California, Los Angeles] summarizes concepts, principles, and inference tools that are useful in modeling aspects of causal reasoning. The principles are based on structural-model semantics, in which modifiable functional relationships, representing autonomous physical processes are the fundamental building blocks." Questions from the audience follow the talk. October 4, 2001. (more)

Children using Computers to Learn.
Seymor Papert trying to show how kids can use computers to learn. Various shots of fourth grade kids giving mathematical orders to a computer in order to control a HP display, or to create songs. 1968-1969? (more)

Scientific American Frontiers with Alan Alda: "I, Robot" segment from the "Life's Really Big Questions" broadcast.
Philosopher and author Dan Dennett marvels at the human machine and its unique ability to wonder. December 19, 2000. (more)

The Next Big Thing (Series Two): Machines with Minds.
Real moving, interacting robots is one promising direction in artificial intelligence. But what about the original hope of matching human performance, and what has A.I. told us about the human brain? When science of artificial intelligence was launched in the 50s, its goal was to match the intellectual achievements of human beings. Why isn't machine intelligence already far superior to that of people? Chaired by Colin Blakemore [Oxford University], the panel consists of Professor Aaron Sloman (University of Birmingham), Dr Amanda Sharkey (University of Sheffield), and Professor Igor Aleksander (Imperial College). 2002. (more)

This Week on Philosophy Talk - Artificial Intelligence.
With Ken Taylor and John Perry of Stanford University. KALW, 91.7 FM, San Francisco. "At least some versions of artificial intelligence are attempts not merely to model human intelligence, but to make computers and robots that exhibit it: that have thoughts, use language, and even have free will. Does this make sense? What would it show us about human thinking and consciousness? Join John and Ken [and guest Marvin Minsky] as they uncover the philosophical issues raised by artificial intelligence." May 20, 2007. (more)

USC Presents...Closer To Truth: What is Consciousness?
"What is Consciousness – our inner thoughts, feelings, personalities -- the hidden 'Stuff' of our Private Selves? Is there something special about Consciousness, something of the mind not in the brain? This is self awareness, the interior mental experience we call Consciousness. What is the importance of studying Consciousness? The panel discusses the concept of human consciousness." August 8, 2004. (more)