Ponderings of science, philosophy, history, society, and many other topics
Jim Al-Khalili has an article at OpenMind attacking Occam's razor, at least in the form it's typically articulated, that the simplest explanation should be preferred. Al-Khalili correctly points out that there are a lot of problems with that version of the principle. Simply preferring the explanation we think is the simplest is often just favoring … Continue reading Don’t throw out Occam’s razor just yet
It's an interesting time for fantasy fans, with two major series airing at the same time. There have been a lot of comparisons between them, and speculation on which would "win". Of course, there's no particular reason to see these shows as competitors since a lot of people, like me, will watch both. They're similar … Continue reading Why I’m enjoying The Rings of Power more than House of the Dragon
This Kurzgesagt video is interesting. It discusses the possibility of civilization collapsing and how it might affect the long term fate of humanity. It's about 11 minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W93XyXHI8Nw Kurzgesagt: Is Civilization on the Brink of Collapse? One of the things the video gets into is how we should think about our present day decisions, decisions … Continue reading The possibility of civilization collapsing and longtermism
It's strange that I've never posted about Westworld. Looking back, it might have been because the first season finished in late 2016 during a period of high distraction (at least for me), the second season happened during my "blogging winter" in 2018 (another period of distraction), and the third, while mildly entertaining, was nothing to … Continue reading Westworld and the dangers of artificial people
The latest installment of Linda Nagata's Inverted Frontier series, Needle, dropped last week, so of course I had to immediately move it to the top of the reading list. This is far future space opera, but with hard(ish) science fiction bent. Unlike typical space opera, there is no faster than light travel, so no galactic … Continue reading Needle (Inverted Frontier Book 3)
Henry Shevlin has an interesting paper from 2021 in Mind & Language that just went open access: Non-human consciousness and the specificity problem: A modest theoretical proposal. Shevlin discusses the problem of applying cognitive theories of consciousness, developed within the context of human psychology, to non-human systems, such as animals or artificial systems. For example, … Continue reading The specificity problem
This week, while working through my podcast backlog, I came across an interview of Jacy Reese Anthis. We discussed Anthis' paper on consciousness semanticism a few months ago. Like me, Anthis sees the term "consciousness" as ambiguous, one that has had a variety of different meanings over the centuries, and continues to have a range … Continue reading Philosophical semanticism
I've discussed many times that the word "consciousness" has a variety of meanings. But most commonly, the various meanings can be grouped into two broad categories. One refers to some combination of functionality, typically the information processing that happens in the brain enabling an organism to take in, assess, and use information about itself and … Continue reading Consciousness, illusions, and definitions
I've been a Star Trek fan since I was very young. I remember getting home from school every day and rushing to the TV to catch the next episode, which at this point, c. 1971, were syndicated reruns. Most of the episodes were individual stories, and so could be shown in any order, which the … Continue reading Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
I noted in the post on Susan Blackmore's views that often consciousness get associated with the results of one of three processes: perception, attention, or introspection. Interestingly, while everyone and their brother has a book out on consciousness, attention receives far less... attention. At least in the popular press. The science of attention has a … Continue reading Attention and consciousness
SelfAwarePatterns 