New journal: Human Arenas

New journal: Human Arenas

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Linked here. The blurb: The aim of this journal concerns the interdisciplinary study of higher psychological functions (as topic of a general theory of psyche from the perspective of cultural psychology) in human goal-oriented liminal phenomena in ordinary and extraordinary life conditions. The journal is organized around topics and arenas of human activity, rather than the traditional boundaries of academic disciplines. It will explore human arenas from the point of view of historical foundations, methodology, epistemology, and the intersection of…

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history and philosophy of ecological psychology

history and philosophy of ecological psychology

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Article from Frontiers in Psychology at this link. From the Introduction: “Ecological psychology is an embodied, situated, and non-representationalist approach to cognition pioneered by J. J. Gibson (1904–1979) in the field of perception and by E. J. Gibson (1910–2002) in the field of developmental psychology. Ecological psychology, in its very origins, aimed to offer an innovative perspective for understanding perception and perceptual learning that overcomes the traditional psychological dichotomies of perception/action, organism/environment, subjective/objective, and mind/body.”

Cultural and genetic evolution

Cultural and genetic evolution

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From this article: “The idea that humans have cognitive instincts is a cornerstone of evolutionary psychology, pioneered by Leda Cosmides, John Tooby and Steven Pinker in the 1990s. […] This all seems plausible and intuitive, doesn’t it? The trouble is, the evidence behind it is dubious. In fact, if we look closely, it’s apparent that evolutionary psychology is due for an overhaul. Rather than hard-wired cognitive instincts, our heads are much more likely to be populated by cognitive gadgets, tinkered and…

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‘Neurosexism’ debated

‘Neurosexism’ debated

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Neuroscientist Larry Cahill takes issue with a Feb 2019 Nature favorable book review of Gina Rippon’s The Gendered Brain: The New Neuroscience That Shatters The Myth Of The Female Brain. Cahill’s response prompted an interview by Medium Neuroscience writer Meghan Daum. Scientific findings have a way of upsetting apple carts, especially when we consider our oft-demonstrated human capacity to bend science to advantage some power-coveting groups over others. Valid research amply shows there are real differences in male and female…

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Ideas of Stuart Kauffman

Ideas of Stuart Kauffman

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If you are familiar with complex systems theorist Dr. Stuart Kauffman’s ideas you know he covers a broad range of disciplines and concepts, many in considerable depth, and with a keen eye for isomorphic and integrative principles. If you peruse some of his writings and other communications, please share with us how you see Kauffman’s ideas informing our focal interests: brain, mind, intelligence (organic and inorganic), and self-aware consciousness. Do you find Kauffman’s ideas well supported by empirical research? Which…

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Book: Team Human by Douglas Rushkoff

Book: Team Human by Douglas Rushkoff

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Team Human by Douglas Rushkoff investigates the impacts of current and emerging technologies and digital culture on individuals and groups and seeks ways to evade or extract ourselves from their corrosive effects. After you read the book, please post your thoughts as comments to this post or, if you prefer, as new posts. There are interviews and other resources about the book online. Feel free to recommend in the comments those you find meaningful. Also, the audiobook is available through…

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Evolutionary robots – Future of embodied AI?

Evolutionary robots – Future of embodied AI?

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An article in Nature Machine Intelligence reports on R&D efforts employing evolutionary approaches to getting robots that are better adapted to their environments. We propose ‘multi-level evolution’, a bottom-up automatic process that designs robots across multiple levels and niches them to tasks and environmental conditions. Multi-level evolution concurrently explores constituent molecular and material building blocks, as well as their possible assemblies into specialized morphological and sensorimotor configurations. Multi-level evolution provides a route to fully harness a recent explosion in available…

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ai will never conquer humanity

ai will never conquer humanity

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From this piece located at the publications page of the International Computer Science Institute.   “Mathematical models help describe reality, but only by ignoring its inherent integrity.” Computers work on binary logic and the world is full of  ‘noise.’ Hence computers, and mathematical models for that matter, can only approximate reality by eliminating that noise. “Can a bunch of bits represent reality exactly, in a way that can be controlled and predicted indefinitely? The answer is no, because nature is…

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the evolution of synergy

the evolution of synergy

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Good quick summary of some of Deacon’s ideas. Deacon: “We need to stop thinking about hierarchic evolution in simple Darwinian terms. We need to think about it both in terms of selection and the loss of selection or the reduction of selection. And that maybe it’s the reduction of selection that’s responsible for the most interesting features” (9:40).