Ponderings of science, philosophy, history, society, and many other topics
This weekend Locus Magazine announced the winners of this year's Locus Awards. John Scalzi's novel, The Kaiju Preservation Society, won the award for best science fiction novel. Shortly after the announcement, Scalzi took some criticism online for the quality of his writing. Apparently people don't think he does it right, that his writing is too … Continue reading Slow Time Between the Stars
A few years ago it was announced that The Templeton Foundation was funding an adversarial collaboration on theories of consciousness. The initial plan was to pit Global Neuronal Workspace Theory (GNWT) against Integrated Information Theory (IIT), although the initiative plans to move on to other theories once these have been tested. Early on, I had … Continue reading Workspace vs integration: results starting to come in
Some years ago I did post reviewing Dennis E. Taylor's Bobiverse series. In the first book, Bob Johansson wakes up in the future to discover that he died but that his mind was uploaded into a computer. He's forced into being the control system for a Von Neumann probe, a self replicating interstellar craft. Being … Continue reading Heaven’s River
As usual, I'm late to the party, not having seen this in the theaters. But it became available for streaming this weekend. As with the first, it's a visually stunning movie. And also as with the first, while I know I was supposed to be captivated by the animals and vegetation, and was to some … Continue reading Avatar: The Way of Water, and mind uploading
SelfAwarePatterns 