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why scientists really don’t need the input of philosophers like raymond tallis
A long time ago, I shared one of my favorite jokes about philosophers. It went like this. Once, a president of a large and prestigious university was asked who were his most expensive staff to fund....
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why we can’t bring you back from the dead with a computer
For those who are convinced that one day we can upload our minds to a computer and emulate the artificial immortality of Ultron in the finest traditions of comic book science, there’s a number of...
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why simulation is not emulation
Whenever I write a post about why you can’t just plug a human brain or a map of it into a future computer and expect to get a working mind as a result, two criticisms inevitably get sent to both my...
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why the iq police won’t come after you with a brain scanner
According to overenthusiastic hacks at Wired, scientists have recently developed a way to scan your brain to predict just how intelligent someone is or how good you’ll be at certain tasks. This sounds...
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milgram’s experiments get a modern reboot
Every psychology class mentions Stanley Milgram’s famous experiment to determine the limits of how far people could be pushed to execute horrific orders, and it’s since been the standard for today’s...
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synchronized chaos: why your brain isn’t anything like a computer
How many times have you heard the brain referred to as a computer? Probably more times than you can count. The analogy is so pervasive, the idea of uploading a mind to a machine is used as a plot...
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world of weird things podcast: the white truffle walkers of the aporkalypse
Thanks to an experiment to better understand brain structure and function, and how well brains of the deceased could help us test potential treatments for neurodegenerative diseases, we’ve...
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if you can’t beat artificial intelligence, maybe you can join it
Imagine that you just landed in a massive foreign metropolis. You don’t speak the language, you don’t know where to go to get to your hotel, and you’re not sure if you’re following the signs...
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what spiders could teach us about the evolution of brains and intelligence
Spiders seem like completely alien creatures. Instead of bones that grow with them, they have exoskeletons they gruesomely molt as they get bigger. They have eight eyes rather than two, although some...
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world of weird things podcast: so, what does your brain really do?
When pop culture wants you to think that a certain character has superhuman intelligence, that character is given an enormous head and it’s either outright stated or heavily implied that their brains...
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