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Category: consciousness

Sapience by Walden Hanes

Sapience by Walden Hanes

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Here is his Facebook post discussing some of the AI research used in his book. “The opening scenes of my novel ๐—ฆ๐—”๐—ฃ๐—œ๐—˜๐—ก๐—–๐—˜ take place at the ๐—ฆ๐—ถ๐—บ๐˜‚๐—น๐—ฎ๐—ฏ, a research facility in 2036 that seeks to create ๐—ฆ๐˜†๐—ป๐˜๐—ต๐—ฒ๐˜๐—ถ๐—ฐ ๐—–๐—ผ๐—ป๐˜€๐—ฐ๐—ถ๐—ผ๐˜‚๐˜€๐—ป๐—ฒ๐˜€๐˜€, a theoretical form of Artificial Intelligence possessing human-like intuition and self-awareness. ย  “Early in the novel, the ๐—ฆ๐—ถ๐—บ๐˜‚๐—น๐—ฎ๐—ฏ pursues its goal using methods I imagined based on current ๐—ฃ๐—ฟ๐—ผ๐—ฏ๐—ฎ๐—ฏ๐—ถ๐—น๐—ถ๐˜€๐˜๐—ถ๐—ฐ ๐—–๐—ผ๐—บ๐—ฝ๐˜‚๐˜๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ด theory. I merged this probabilistic approach with aspects of the ๐—™๐—ฟ๐—ถ๐˜€๐˜๐—ผ๐—ป ๐—™๐—ฟ๐—ฒ๐—ฒ…

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Beyond free will: The embodied emergence of conscious agency

Beyond free will: The embodied emergence of conscious agency

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Article by Michael Mascolo and Eeva Kallio in Philosophical Psychology (2019). The abstract: “Is it possible to reconcile the concept of conscious agency with the view that humans are biological creatures subject to material causality? The problem of conscious agency is complicated by the tendency to attribute autonomous powers of control to conscious processes. In this paper, we offer an embodied process model of conscious agency. We begin with the concept of embodied emergence โ€“ the idea that psychological processes…

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Arendt on behaviorism, cognition, work, automation, and passivity

Arendt on behaviorism, cognition, work, automation, and passivity

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โ€œArendt anticipated the destructive potential of behaviorism decades ago when she lamented the devolution of our conception of โ€˜thoughtโ€™ to something that is accomplished by a โ€˜brainโ€™ and is therefore transferable to ‘electronic instruments’: The last stage of the laboring society, the society of jobholders, demands of its members a sheer automatic functioning, as though individual life had actually been submerged in the over-all life process of the species and the only active decision still required of the individual were…

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Developmental cognitive neuroscience

Developmental cognitive neuroscience

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Official journal of Flux: The Flux Society for Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Editor-in-Chief:Professor Beatriz Luna, Ph.D ย  The journal publishes theoretical and research papers on cognitive brain development, from infancy through childhood and adolescence and into adulthood. It covers neurocognitive development and neurocognitive processing in both typical and atypical development, including social and affective aspects. Appropriate methodologies for the journal include, but are not limited to, functional neuroimaging (fMRI and MEG), electrophysiology (EEG and ERP), NIRS and transcranial magnetic stimulation, as…

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The story of our reality

The story of our reality

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Interesting article on how what we perceive isn’t always the reality. We make up stories that shape our perceptions. “‘Itโ€™s really important to understand weโ€™re not seeing reality,’ says neuroscientist Patrick Cavanagh, a research professor at Dartmouth College and a senior fellow at Glendon College in Canada. ‘Weโ€™re seeing a story thatโ€™s being created for us.’ Most of the time, the story our brains generate matches the real, physical world โ€” but not always. Our brains also unconsciously bend our…

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How the Black Death Radically Changed the Course of History

How the Black Death Radically Changed the Course of History

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link.medium.com/YRFzoB3Xr5 This article is relevant to our recent discussions and Zak Stein’s (see Edward’s recent post) suggestion that great destabilizing events open gaps in which new structures can supplant older, disintegrating systems–with the inherent risks and opportunities.

Dual-System theory and the role of consciousness in intentional action

Dual-System theory and the role of consciousness in intentional action

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Book chapter by Marcus Schlosser in Free Will, Causality and Neuroscience (2020). From the Introduction: “I will propose a revised version of the standard view according to which automatic action (or so-called automatic goal pursuit) can qualify as derivatively intentional if it has appropriate history of habit formation” (36).

Consciousness goes deeper than you think

Consciousness goes deeper than you think

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We’ve investigated Damasio‘s various forms of consciousness, from proto to core to narrative, as well as Dehaene‘s 2 forms. This Scientific American article reiterates at least the 2 different kinds. “Jonathan Schooler has established a clear distinction between conscious and meta-conscious processes. Whereas both types entail the qualities of experience, meta-conscious processes also entail what he called re-representation. […] Attention plays an important role is in re-representation; that is, the conscious knowledge of an experience, which underlies introspection. Subjects cannot…

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Living in the futureโ€™s past

Living in the futureโ€™s past

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I watched a good documentary last night titled, Living in the Futureโ€™s Past, a project organized, produced, and narrated by Jeff Bridges. Itโ€™s available through your Albuquerque Public Library accountโ€™s access to Hoopla Digital, Amazon Prime video, and other services. It lays out the modern dilemma of having a pre-neolithic brain in a Neolithic era and posits several questions that align closely with the theme of our current discussion . The film has commentary from diverse scientific experts, including Daniel…

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Winter 2020 discussion prompts

Winter 2020 discussion prompts

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What is humanityโ€™s situation with respect to surviving long-term with a good quality of life? (Frame the core opportunities and obstacles.) What attributes of our evolved, experientially programmed brains contribute to this situation? (What are the potential leverage points for positive change within our body-brain-mind system?) What courses of research and action (including currently available systems, tools, and practices and current and possible lines of R&D) have the potential to improve our (and the planetary life systemโ€™s) near- and long-term…

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