The necessity of dexterity for civilization

Today's SMBC highlights something about humanity that is often overlooked, something that any extraterrestrial intelligence that builds a civilization would have to have. Click through for hover-text and red button caption. Source: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - The Mammal Conspiracy We often talk about the intelligence of dolphins, whales, cephalopods, elephants, and other species.  But … Continue reading The necessity of dexterity for civilization

The problems with philosophical zombies

In any online conversation about consciousness, sooner or later someone is going to bring up philosophical zombies as an argument for consciousness being non-physical, or at least some portion of it.  The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy introduces the p-zombie concept as follows: Zombies in philosophy are imaginary creatures designed to illuminate problems about consciousness and its relation … Continue reading The problems with philosophical zombies