Month: October 2019

Angst over mini-brains

Organoids, the small pieces of neural tissue grown from stem cells, dubbed "mini-brains", and used in research, have been getting a lot of attention lately.  Apparently a few neuroscientists are concerned that the organoids might be sentient, and suffering as experiments are performed on them.  There's growing concern that implanting human mini-brains in animal brains … Continue reading Angst over mini-brains →

Michael Graziano on mind uploading

Michael Graziano has an article at The Guardian, which feels like an excerpt from his new book, exploring what might happen if we can upload minds: Imagine that a person’s brain could be scanned in great detail and recreated in a computer simulation. The person’s mind and memories, emotions and personality would be duplicated. In … Continue reading Michael Graziano on mind uploading →

A competition between integration and workspace

Back in March, I did a post on a proposed Templeton Foundation project to test major scientific theories of consciousness.  The idea was to start with a head to head competition between the integration information theory (IIT) and global workspace theory (GWT).  Apparently that project got funded and, according to a Science Magazine article, there … Continue reading A competition between integration and workspace →

The problems with post-empirical science

Jim Baggott has a pretty good piece at Aeon on the problems with post-empirical science.  I've highlighted Baggott's views before.  Along with others like Sabine Hossenfelder and Peter Woit, he calls attention to a serious issue in physics, the rising acceptance of theories that show little promise of being testable in the foreseeable future.  In … Continue reading The problems with post-empirical science →