Eric Schwitzgebel is reading Stannis Lem's novel 'Solaris' and discovers in the novel a test of the existence of the external world: I instructed the satellite to give me the figure of the galactic meridians it was traversing at 22-second intervals while orbiting Solaris, and I specified an answer to five decimal points. Then I sat … Continue reading Proof that the external world exists?
Tag: Human
The End of the World: Science or Religion? | Seth Shostak
Harold Camping died last month. In case you don't remember, Camping, the president of evangelical Family Radio, predicted that the world would end in 2011. Twice. He made these prognostications on the basis of numerology, which sounds like it might be a sophomore-level math subject, but isn't. The data for the calculations Camping used to … Continue reading The End of the World: Science or Religion? | Seth Shostak
What Americans believe
Pew published the results of a new study this morning that is getting a lot of attention on the web: Six-in-ten Americans (60%) say that “humans and other living things have evolved over time,” while a third (33%) reject the idea of evolution, saying that “humans and other living things have existed in their present … Continue reading What Americans believe
‘Just Babies – The Origins of Good and Evil,’ by Paul Bloom – NYTimes.com
Is morality innate? In his new book, “Just Babies,” the psychologist Paul Bloom draws from his research at the Yale Infant Cognition Center to argue that “certain moral foundations are not acquired through learning. . . . They are instead the products of biological evolution.” Infants may be notoriously difficult to study (rats and pigeons … Continue reading ‘Just Babies – The Origins of Good and Evil,’ by Paul Bloom – NYTimes.com
BBC News – Neanderthals could speak like modern humans, study suggests
An analysis of a Neanderthal\'s fossilised hyoid bone - a horseshoe-shaped structure in the neck - suggests the species had the ability to speak. This has been suspected since the 1989 discovery of a Neanderthal hyoid that looks just like a modern human\'s. But now computer modelling of how it works has shown this bone … Continue reading BBC News – Neanderthals could speak like modern humans, study suggests
Attempts To Terraform Mars Could Fail – With No Chance To Try Again
Most science fiction and news stories describe Mars terraforming as a long term but simple process. You warm up the planet first, with greenhouse gases, giant mirrors, impacting comets or some such. You land humans on the surface right away and they introduce lifeforms designed to live on Mars. Over a period of a thousand … Continue reading Attempts To Terraform Mars Could Fail – With No Chance To Try Again
Neanderthals and the Dead – NYTimes.com
Early in the 20th century, two brothers discovered a nearly complete Neanderthal skeleton in a pit inside a cave at La Chapelle-aux-Saints, in southwestern France. The discovery raised the possibility that these evolutionary relatives of ours intentionally buried their dead — at least 50,000 years ago, before the arrival of anatomically modern humans in Europe. … Continue reading Neanderthals and the Dead – NYTimes.com
Perspectives on deep time
The universe is roughly 13.8 billions years old. The universe was 66% of its current age by the time the Sun and Earth formed. Life appears to have begun on Earth when it was around 10% of its current age of around 4.5 billion years. The Earth was 85% of its current age before the … Continue reading Perspectives on deep time
More on computer consciousness
After discussion on my post the other day on consciousness being in the eye beholder, I realized that I probably should expand a bit on my hypothesis about what we would intuitively consider to be a conscious being. We, as minds, are aware. We have awareness from our senses: sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste. From the … Continue reading More on computer consciousness
Consciousness is in the eye of the beholder
Alan Turing was a pioneer in the field of computer science. One of the things he is famous for is the Turing test. At its core, this is a test about whether or not a machine, a computer, can convince a human that the machine is another human. The details of the specific test that … Continue reading Consciousness is in the eye of the beholder
SelfAwarePatterns 