Ponderings of science, philosophy, history, society, and many other topics
Happy Newtonmas, Happy Hanukkah, a belated Happy Solstice, and overall Season's Greetings! This was another low volume year as far as blogging went. The principle reason was work and the epic project we've been working on in the last few years, which is entering its most intense period. By this time next year, it won't … Continue reading Merry Christmas
People often worry that our civilization may be in decline, or even about to fall. And there's something to be said for not being complacent about this. Historically, every civilization eventually fails. Entropy always wins in the end. So it isn't a matter of if but when. Whether it happens tomorrow or in 500 years, … Continue reading Factors in the fall of civilizations
This is the fourth in a series of posts on Jonathan Birch’s book, The Edge of Sentience. This one covers the section on artificial intelligence. Birch begins the section by acknowledging how counter intuitive the idea might be of sentience existing in systems we build, ones that aren't alive and have no body. But he urges us to … Continue reading The edge of sentience in AI
This is the third in a series of posts on Jonathan Birch's book, The Edge of Sentience. This one covers the section on animal sentience. I think it's fair to say that this is the section Birch is most passionate about. It's definitely the one where I feel his activism most keenly. A concept he … Continue reading The edge of sentience in animals
Some thoughts on the US election. First, there's no way to sugarcoat this. It's a Trump win. Not only did he win the electoral college, but it looks like he will win the popular vote this time. However we feel about it, it is a decisive win. Strangely enough, I'm not as shell shocked as … Continue reading Election 2024
This is the second in a series of posts on Jonathan Birch's book, The Edge of Sentience. This one is on borderline cases of sentience in humans. Birch looks at cases involving humans with disorders of consciousness, such as those in vegetative or minimally conscious states, as well as fetuses, embryos, and neural organoids made … Continue reading The edge of sentience in humans
I'm currently reading Jonathan Birch's The Edge of Sentience, a book focusing on the boundary between systems that can feel pleasure or pain, and those that can't, and the related ethics. While this is a subject I'm interested in, I'm leery of the activism the animal portions of it attract. I have nothing in particular … Continue reading The semantic indeterminacy of sentience
I voted today. As with the last several elections, it was via early voting. My schedule was relatively light today, lighter than it's going to be next week, and probably lighter than election day. Getting it out of the way seemed like a good idea. This time I avoided the mistake I made last time, … Continue reading Voting 2024
Spurred by a couple of recent conversations, I've been thinking about computation in the brain. It was accelerated this week by the news that the connectome of the fly brain is complete, a mapping of its 140,000 neurons and 55 million synapses. It's a big improvement over the 302 neurons of the C. Elegans worm, … Continue reading Classic and connectionist computationalism
What does the knowledge argument actually demonstrate? The argument, which shows up in various forms in numerous philosophical papers and thought experiments, is that we can have a complete physical understanding of a conscious being, but still not know how it feels to be that being. We can know everything about a bat's nervous system, … Continue reading The problem with the knowledge argument
SelfAwarePatterns 