Ponderings of science, philosophy, history, society, and many other topics
It's been an interesting week in consciousness studies. It started with Steve Fleming doing a blog post, a follow up to one he'd done earlier expressing his concerns about how the results of the adversarial collaboration between global neuronal workspace (GNW) and integrated information theory (IIT) were portrayed in the science media. GNW sees consciousness … Continue reading Integrated information theory as pseudoscience?
James S. A. Corey is the author of The Expanse series and the pen name of Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck. Abraham and Franck are writing a new novel. And they're opening up the entire process to a Patreon audience. Membership allows you to watch the entire process, from figuring out what they're going to … Continue reading Watching James S. A. Corey work
I often use non-standard language to describe concepts, and I've had a couple of people over the last couple of years call me on it. There seemed to be a sentiment that I was confusing things, or being sneaky in some way, by not sticking to the standard nomenclature. A short post about why I … Continue reading Using alternate terminology
Adam Mastroianni has a post that's getting a pretty good amount of attention. Mastroianni discusses recent claims of fraud in psychology, as well as the replication crisis. But his actual topic is how little difference it makes when most of the studies in question are removed from the scientific record. The overall gist is that … Continue reading Solving a problem requires not banishing the possible solutions
An interesting preprint was released this week: Consciousness in Artificial Intelligence: Insights from the Science of Consciousness. The paper is long and has has sixteen authors, although two: Patrick Butlin and Robert Long, are flagged as the primaries. The list of contributors includes Jonathan Birch, Stephen Fleming, Grace Lindsay, Matthias Michel, and Eric Schwitzgebel, all … Continue reading How to tell if AI is conscious
When it comes to entertainment, for me, it seems like it never rains but it pours. We seem to go through stretches with nothing interesting on, then suddenly a flood. Although some things have been out a while and have just taken a while for me to catch up on. One of them is the … Continue reading Babylon 5 and other TV notes
If you're a nerd of a certain type and age, you might remember the 1970s Marvel comic series Planet of the Apes, the black and white one under the Curtis Magazines imprint. The Curtis comics were interesting in that they were sold as magazines on the magazine rack, not the comic book one. Which meant … Continue reading Planet of the Apes Archive
It's been a few weeks since I last posted on social media and there have been developments. Twitter is now officially gone, replaced with X. For some reason, the symbolism of this move seems to have convinced a lot of people that the old Twitter is gone in a way the last several months of … Continue reading The need for self curation in social media
Zach Weinersmith is a man after my own heart when it comes to consciousness, as today's Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal shows. As the consciousness is in the eye of the beholder and hierarchy of definitions guy, I feel this comic. It also resonates with Jacy Reese Anthis' conscious semanticism outlook. Click through for the original … Continue reading SMBC: Consciousness: a definition thing
Silo, a TV show on Apple TV+, based on Hugh Howey's Wool book series, is one of my favorite types of science fiction. One where the characters find themselves in a world very different from ours, which they, and us, don't understand the nature of. Typically as the story unfolds, we learn that the world … Continue reading Silo
SelfAwarePatterns 