Reaching the stars will require serious out-of-the-box thinking

Sten Odenwald, an astronomer with the National Institute of Aerospace, has an article up at HuffPost that many will find disheartening: The Dismal Future of Interstellar Travel | Dr. Sten Odenwald. I have been an avid science fiction reader all my life, but as an astronomer for over half my life, the essential paradox of my fantasy world can … Continue reading Reaching the stars will require serious out-of-the-box thinking →

Maybe we’ve found Neanderthals, and they are us.

The intermixing of modern humans and Neanderthals is back in the news: BBC News - DNA yields secrets of human pioneer. DNA analysis of a 45,000-year-old human has helped scientists pinpoint when our ancestors interbred with Neanderthals. The genome sequence from a thigh bone found in Siberia shows the first episode of mixing occurred between 50,000 … Continue reading Maybe we’ve found Neanderthals, and they are us. →

Massimo Pigliucci’s pessimistic view of mind uploading

Massimo Pigliucci wrote a paper on his skepticism of the possibility of mind uploading, the idea that our minds are information which it might be possible someday to copy into a computer virtual reality system or some other type of technology.  His paper appears to be one chapter in a broader book, 'Intelligence Unbound: The Future … Continue reading Massimo Pigliucci’s pessimistic view of mind uploading →

Philosophy Tech Support

(Click through for the rest, and for a caption explaining the philosophy referenced.) via Philosophy Tech Support - Existential Comics. Does philosophy have a responsibility to be relevant to real world problems?  This is a question often asked of science.  I think the answer is complicated, because we never know where a real world solution might … Continue reading Philosophy Tech Support →

Multiverse theories: “meta-cosmology”?

Marianne Freiberger reports on a discussion she had with Bernard Carr on whether or not multiverse theories are science.  He has a suggestion for how we should classify these theories. With the possibility for indirect evidence in the future, maybe we shouldn't dismiss the multiverse as mere speculation, especially since it has many features that are … Continue reading Multiverse theories: “meta-cosmology”? →

Video on what exactly a gene is

There's a video on the evidence for evolution going around, but turns out the artist that made that video has made a number of them, including this one on the scientific understanding of a gene. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MQdXjRPHmQ via Videos / What Exactly is a Gene? - Stated Clearly. What's interesting about this, is that the definition of … Continue reading Video on what exactly a gene is →

The attention schema theory of consciousness deserves your…attention

Michael Graziano published a brief article in the New York Times on his attention schema theory of consciousness, which a number of my fellow bloggers have linked to and discussed.  I'm not sure this article was the clearest description of it that he's given, and I suspect the title biased readers to think his theory is another consciousness-is-an-illusion … Continue reading The attention schema theory of consciousness deserves your…attention →