Philosophy Updates

Russell's mistake that changed philosophy
https://iai.tv/articles/russells-mistake-that-changed-philosophy-auid-2830?_auid=2020

INTRO: While history suggests that the founder of analytical philosophy, Bertrand Russell, won the fight against the idealists led by F.H. Bradley, in this instalment of our idealism series, in partnership with the Essentia Foundation, Yale philosopher Michael Della Rocca argues that Russell failed to even address Bradley’s central argument. But ignoring Bradley’s timeless message puts in serious jeopardy not only our basic understanding of ethics, but also the ultimate nature of reality itself... (MORE - details)

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Artificial intelligence has psychological impacts our brains might not be ready for, expert warns
https://www.abc.net.au/news/health/...ligence-ai-psychology-mental-health/103753940

EXCERPT: The chatbots also brought out a darker side in some Replika clients. "Mainly males were bragging … about how they could have this sort of abusive relationship – 'I had this Replika girl and she was like a slave. I would tell her, I'm going to switch her off and kill her … and she would beg me not to switch off'," Professor Pearson says.

It was reminiscent of what happens in the dystopian science fiction series Westworld, where people let out their urges on artificial humans, he says. Professor Pearson says there's a lack of research on the implications of this aspect of human AI relationships. "What does it do to us? … If I treat my AI like a slave and I'm rude to it and abusive, how does that then change how I relate to humans? Does that carry over?" (MORE - missing details)
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How about making this a mandatory "human bible" for AI interactions that require knowledge of human "morals"?

If AI truly can be taught to emulate human behaviors, then this "state of human civilization", might be a great teaching tool for AI?
 
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Recent developments that may have PoM relevance (philosophy of mind), along with an essay from Koch. With respect to the latter, note that permalinks to WSJ may no longer work after hours, days, weeks or for some regions.
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Optical illusion reveals key brain rule that governs consciousness
https://www.livescience.com/health/...als-key-brain-rule-that-governs-consciousness

It's well established that this illusion causes the human brain to falsely fill in and perceive a nonexistent outline and brightness — but there's been ongoing debate about what's going on in the brain when it happens. Now, for the first time, scientists have demonstrated that the illusion works on mice, and this allowed them to peer into the rodents' brains to see what's going on.

PAPER: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41...2172&CJEVENT=e1b5c7b5096011ef827500510a1cb82b

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New ‘map of consciousness’ could help to wake up coma patients
https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/brain-map-of-consciousness

Despite being a fundamental part of human existence, we know very little about consciousness and how it happens. Now, scientists have just brought us one step closer to finding out with a new 'map of consciousness' – and their results could help to wake up coma patients.

PAPER: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.adj4303

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The gift of experiencing 'Ego Death" (Christof Koch)
https://www.wsj.com/science/the-gif...h9b0mqrauod&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

I ceased to exist in any recognizable way, shape, or form. No more Christof, no more ego, no more self; no memories, dreams, desires, hopes, fears—everything personal was stripped away. Nothing was left but a nonself: this remaining essence wasn’t man, woman, child, animal, spirit, or anything else; it didn’t want anything, expect anything, think anything, remember anything, dread anything. But it experienced. It saw a point of cold white light of unbearable intensity, a timeless universe convulsed to a blazing, icy light. That and a profound feeling of both terror and ecstasy, the awfulness of pure experience lasting indefinitely—for there was no perception of time. The experience wasn’t brief or long. It simply was.
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Has Christian philosophy been having it too easy?
https://blog.oup.com/2024/05/has-christian-philosophy-been-having-it-too-easy/

EXCERPTS: Why have non-Christian philosophers avoided directly challenging the Christian worldview? [...] I think that, along with others, I have been contributing to a situation in which Christian philosophy has found it rather too easy to grow and grow and grow. ... So it is time—maybe past time—to stir things up a bit.

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First experimental proof for brain-like computer with water and salt
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1042507

INTRO: Theoretical physicists at Utrecht University, together with experimental physicists at Sogang University in South Korea, have succeeded in building an artificial synapse. This synapse works with water and salt and provides the first evidence that a system using the same medium as our brains can process complex information. The results appear in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Can I make you eat ___? Derek Parfit’s great discovery
https://zworld.substack.com/p/could-i-make-you-eat-shit

EXCERPT: Humanity suffers from the crippling problem that it’s always possible to make things x-er (bigger, better, stronger, clearer). That, plus the desire, is all the repugnance conclusion needs to turn goodness into badness, strength into weakness, reason into madness, clarity into mud, A to B to C and all the way to Z. It targets governments, bureaucracies and institutions but it targets people too.

We’re all trying to make ourselves x-er along some dimension or other, moving along a continuum, making incremental improvements and each time adding just a little bit of shit. And shit accumulates. Marx thought that capitalism would collapse under the weight of its own shit (its own “contradictions,” as he lovingly put it). The repugnant conclusion shouts back: so shall you all!

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The big idea: what would culture look like without nightlife?
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2...hat-would-culture-look-like-without-nightlife

EXCERPTS: I was expecting the familiar mass of people finishing work, spilling out of pubs, standing around on corners, but the city streets were dead. It felt more like an early Sunday morning than the start of a weekend in what still claims to be a 24-hour city. [...] According to the Night Time Industries Association, more than 3,000 pubs, clubs and venues have closed down in London alone since the pandemic began in March 2020.

With numbers like that, it’s worth asking: if we lose nightlife, what do we lose? Outside bigger cities, you don’t always need to use your imagination. In the town where I grew up, there was a nightclub and a late-night bar. Both have stood empty and boarded up for years. In the town where I live now, the only place open late at the weekend is a strip club...

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Private Censorship (sound file)
https://newbooksnetwork.com/private-censorship

SUMMARY: When we think of censorship, our minds might turn to state agencies exercising power to silence dissent. However, contemporary concerns about censorship arise in contexts where non-state actors suppress expression and communication. There are subtle and not-so-subtle forms of interference that come from social groups, employers, media corporations, and even search engines. Should these “new” forms of censorship alarm us? Should we assess them in ways that mirror our typical views about state-enacted censorship? If not, how should we think about non-state modes of censorship?

In "Private Censorship" (Oxford University Press, 2024), J. P. Messina takes up these broad questions. He examines a range of emerging sites of non-state censorship – what he calls “private” censorship – and sorts through the normative, political, and legal issues.

Don't get disoriented by the commercial that it may begin with. (I.e., did I activate the wrong audio?)
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Applying the precautionary principle to AI will kill tech progress (philosophy of technology)
https://reason.com/2024/05/03/ai-regulators-are-more-likely-to-run-amok-than-is-ai/

EXCERPTS: Deploying the precautionary principle is a laser-focused way to kill off any new technology. As it happens, a new bill in the Hawaii Legislature explicitly applies the precautionary principle in regulating artificial intelligence (AI) technologies...

[...] With his own considerable foresight, the brilliant political scientist Aaron Wildavsky anticipated how the precautionary principle would actually end up doing more harm than good. "The direct implication of trial without error is obvious: If you can do nothing without knowing first how it will turn out, you cannot do anything at all," he wrote in his brilliant 1988 book Searching for Safety. "An indirect implication of trial without error is that if trying new things is made more costly, there will be fewer departures from past practice; this very lack of change may itself be dangerous in forgoing chances to reduce existing hazards….Existing hazards will continue to cause harm if we fail to reduce them by taking advantage of the opportunity to benefit from repeated trials."

Among myriad other opportunities, AI could greatly reduce current harms by speeding up the development of new medications and diagnostics, autonomous driving, and safer materials.

[...] California's Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Models Act as being egregiously bad... (MORE - missing details)
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What counts as consciousness? (Koch interview, new book)
https://nautil.us/what-counts-as-co...6d1-5fe7-4b2b-a7e2-8f63f497ef35.1715038895331

INTRO: In Christof Koch's new book, Then I Am Myself The World, Koch, currently the chief scientist at the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, ventures through the challenging landscape of integrated information theory (IIT), a framework that attempts to compute the amount of consciousness in a system based on the degree to which information is networked. Along the way, he struggles with what may be the most difficult question of all: How do our thoughts—seemingly ethereal and without mass or any other physical properties—have real-world consequences? We caught up with him recently over Zoom... (MORE - interview)

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Bryan Magee & Geoffrey Warnock (taped 1987)

video link --> The Philosophy of Immanuel Kant
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C C said:
INTRO: In Christof Koch's new book, Then I Am Myself The World, Koch, currently the chief scientist at the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, ventures through the challenging landscape of integrated information theory (IIT), a framework that attempts to compute the amount of consciousness in a system based on the degree to which information is networked. Along the way, he struggles with what may be the most difficult question of all: How do our thoughts—seemingly ethereal and without mass or any other physical properties—have real-world consequences? We caught up with him recently over Zoom... (MORE - interview)
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KzNQPpuE-Falk_HERO.png


Now consider this:
9xc3W.jpg


The high power lines create a field that powers all those fluorescent bulbs. Could the brain function in a similar way and produce a form of networked hologram inside the brain ( David Bohm)?
 
C C said:
Optical illusion reveals key brain rule that governs consciousness
https://www.livescience.com/health/...als-key-brain-rule-that-governs-consciousness

It's well established that this illusion causes the human brain to falsely fill in and perceive a nonexistent outline and brightness — but there's been ongoing debate about what's going on in the brain when it happens. Now, for the first time, scientists have demonstrated that the illusion works on mice, and this allowed them to peer into the rodents' brains to see what's going on.

PAPER: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41...2172&CJEVENT=e1b5c7b5096011ef827500510a1cb82b
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This is one of my favorite illusions,
checkershadow_double_full.jpg


Even if you know that B is the same color and shade a A, your brain will not allow you to see that, but presents B as lighter.
AFAIK, it is a result of the evolution of a practical survival mechanism for spotting predators hidden in the shadows. (Anil Seth)
 
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Write4U said:
https://assets.nautil.us/sites/3/na...O.png?q=65&auto=format&w=1600&ar=3:1&fit=crop

Now consider this:
https://i.stack.imgur.com/9xc3W.jpg

The high power lines create a field that powers all those fluorescent bulbs. Could the brain function in a similar way and produce a form of networked hologram inside the brain ( David Bohm)?
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EM field theories aren't very popular -- perhaps unjustly so. If particles are well-defined, prolonged disturbances in fields, then ultimately the phenomenal manifestations of consciousness would reside in the intrinsic states of that territory. That is, if one wants to avoid the dualism of an undetectable novelty brutely arising (either conjured or summoned), that merely has a causal connection (asymmetric or reciprocal) to certain brain processes. Rather than literally being the "stuff" of the latter at some level (with respect to how structure, particle matter or fields exist to themselves, rather than as the 3rd-party abstract descriptions and outer sensory representations of humans).

Electromagnetic theories of consciousness
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_theories_of_consciousness

In a circa-2002 publication of The Journal of Consciousness Studies, the electromagnetic theory of consciousness faced an uphill battle for acceptance among cognitive scientists....

[...] Locating consciousness in the brain's EM field, rather than the neurons, has the advantage of neatly accounting for how information located in millions of neurons scattered through the brain can be unified into a single conscious experience (sometimes called the binding or combination problem): the information is unified in the EM field.[citation needed] In this way EM field consciousness can be considered to be "joined-up information". This theory accounts for several otherwise puzzling facts, such as the finding that attention and awareness tend to be correlated with the synchronous firing of multiple neurons rather than the firing of individual neurons. When neurons fire together, their EM fields generate stronger EM field disturbances; so synchronous neuron firing will tend to have a larger impact on the brain's EM field (and thereby consciousness) than the firing of individual neurons. However their generation by synchronous firing is not the only important characteristic of conscious electromagnetic fields—in Pockett's original theory, spatial pattern is the defining feature of a conscious (as opposed to a non-conscious) field.

Holonomic brain theory (Karl Pribram)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holonomic_brain_theory

Holonomic brain theory (Karl Pribram)
http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Holonomic_brain_theory​
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Wonderful, fascinating stuff.

If I may add another excerpt that caught my eye from the above.
Taking the visual system as an example, the form of an optical image is transformed by the retina into a quantum process that is transmitted to the visual cortex. Each dendritic receptive field thus represents the "spread" of the properties of that form originating from the entire retina.
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Taken together, cortical receptive fields form patches of dendritic local field potentials described mathematically by Gabor functions.
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Note that the spread of properties occurs within each patch; there is no spread of the Fourier process over the large extent of the entire cortex. In order to serve the perceptual process the patches must become assembled by the operation of nerve impulses in axonal circuits.
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Processing the vibratory sensory inputs in audition and in tactile sensation proceeds somewhat similarly.
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more... http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Holonomic_brain_theory
 
Slow week...
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Consciousness came before life?
https://iai.tv/articles/life-and-consciousness-what-are-they-auid-2836?_auid=2020

Most scientists believe that consciousness came after life, as a product of evolution. But observations of extraterrestrial organic material, along with Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff’s quantum theory of consciousness, provide reason to believe that consciousness came before life. In fact, argue Hameroff and his collaborators, consciousness may have been what made evolution and life possible in the first place...
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C C said:
consciousness may have been what made evolution and life possible in the first place...
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I am not convinced of that. Is consciousness (of what?) a requirement, and how would that explain stochastic "natural selection"?

Could it be that in a deterministic universe the mathematics of universal stuff and its deterministic interactions naturally select for those interactions that produce "deterministic results."

And when would consciousness begin to emerge from the original plasma state of the universe? It took human consciousness 3.5 billion years on earth to develop into our current state of consciousness and we are not really all that smart, with a very limited range of observational powers.

I like the concept of a quasi-intelligent mathematical universe much better than the very complex concept of a universal quantum consciousness, such as might exist in the brain.
 
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Write4U said:
I am not convinced of that. Is consciousness (of what?) a requirement, and how would that explain stochastic "natural selection"?

Could it be that in a deterministic universe the mathematics of universal stuff and its deterministic interactions naturally select for those interactions that produce "deterministic results."

And when would consciousness begin to emerge from the original plasma state of the universe? It took human consciousness 3.5 billion years on earth to develop into our current state of consciousness and we are not really all that smart, with a very limited range of observational powers.

I like the concept of a quasi-intelligent mathematical universe much better than the very complex concept of a universal quantum consciousness, such as might exist in the brain.
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Even if what Penrose suggests was the case, there would be nothing psychological about such at that level. It would be basic (speculative) ontological characteristics and effects that have to be structured into complex experiences by a higher organization, that also provides cognitive identification and understanding of _X_.

While I have to grant that phenomenal properties can causally affect processes -- just for the brain/body to even be able to reference them -- I don't know that their primitive precursors would be developed enough to direct anything evolution-wise.

Even the feeling of pain is not inherently agonizing -- it derives that from conceptual associations that can be broken by opiates and other chemical agents. Similar with "pleasure" I'd assume, unless returning to a ground state of default indifference is some kind of raw contentment in itself, without aid from semantic abstractions.

EXCERPT: For Penrose, it’s not that consciousness causes the collapse of the wavefunction, but that the collapse of the wavefunction causes (or, perhaps, is) consciousness. This suggests the beginnings of an explanation of consciousness, but it raises the question: what collapses the wavefunction, if not consciousness? To answer this question, Penrose first tries to explain the nature of superposition...

[...] Put differently, consciousness involves a non-computable process – a process which cannot be classically computed. In contrast, familiar, classical reality is algorithmic and “computable.” Penrose therefore concludes that the non-computable process and its attendant conscious “feelings” or “qualia” must come from outside classical physics, namely from quantum physics with its own set of laws.

[...] Penrose’s OR events would have been happening at the level of spacetime geometry in the microenvironment since the early universe – long before life arose. The qualia would presumably be random, disconnected, and lacking context. Penrose thus calls them “proto-conscious.” However, occasionally proto-conscious OR events would be pleasurable, and occur in molecules which could stabilize, resonate, desire and rearrange for more pleasure, prompting the origin and evolution of life.​
 
Again... slow week (scraping). And a break from "consciousness" here. While the first is not new, the bottom video was at least released in the last 8 hours or so. Though, the footage is probably older.
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What is Time?

VIDEO INTRO (excerpts)

RLK: I meet the Bertrand-Russell professor of philosophy at Cambridge, an expert at following time's arrow: Huw Price.

Huw, the most fundamental thing seems to be time, and yet, any of my physicist friends tell me time is not fundamental. It seems to me impossible for something temporal to emerge out of something atemporal.

HW: The first thing we need to do is to think a little bit about what we mean by time. It's helpful to make the distinctions.

Between three properties of time, there seem to be good reasons for thinking they are really not part of the physical world, but coming from us.

There is the idea that there's a special present moment. The idea that there's some kind of flow or passage of time. And the idea that time has a fundamental direction.

What physics gives us is a picture of, so-called, "block universe", where time is just part of a 4-dimensional spacetime.

When some people say that time is not fundamental, they're talking about the first half.

So, they're just expressing the view that things like the specialness of the present and the flow of time turn out not to be part of physics.

I think they're probably right about that [...] I certainly see no problem with the idea that aspects of ordinary time, like flow and the specialness of the present, are somehow subjective. ... I think the arguments in favor of it are very strong...

[...] Now, there's another thing that can be meant by the claim that it's not fundamental, which takes for granted the block universe picture of spacetime. But looks at theories, according to which, spacetime itself is not fundamental. It's emerging out of some lower structure... [RELATED: Pregeometry (physics)]

video link --> What is Time?

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Spacetime is doomed (Donald Hoffman)

INTRO: Donald Hoffman explains why there are intrinsic limits to human perception and consciousness...

video link --> Spacetime is doomed
 
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C C said:
Slow week...
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Consciousness came before life?
https://iai.tv/articles/life-and-consciousness-what-are-they-auid-2836?_auid=2020

Most scientists believe that consciousness came after life, as a product of evolution. But observations of extraterrestrial organic material, along with Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff’s quantum theory of consciousness, provide reason to believe that consciousness came before life. In fact, argue Hameroff and his collaborators, consciousness may have been what made evolution and life possible in the first place...
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(Oh God, no.) Please don't encourage Write4U. He'll turn your useful thread into another garbage dump full of Tegmark's mathematical universe and Hammeroff worshipping posts and random factoids about the wonders of microtubules.
 
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James R said:
(Oh God, no.) Please don't encourage Write4U. He'll turn your useful thread into another garbage dump full of Tegmark's mathematical universe and Hammeroff worshipping posts and random factoids about the wonders of microtubules.
Click to expand...

Good excuse or reminder for resurrecting item #1 in the original post. To start one's own topic if encountering something interesting or argue-worthy in a prolonged manner. If needing to reference something here to get it going (other than the article, paper, or information source itself), then copy the applicable post number link(s), like below.

http://www.sciforums.com/threads/philosophy-updates.166232/

1. Providing recent (and sometimes old) items that may serve as candidates for starting separate discussion threads about.

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Should we fight climate change by re-engineering life itself? (philosophy of technology)
https://theconversation.com/should-we-fight-climate-change-by-re-engineering-life-itself-227995

EXCERPTS: In our latest paper in Nature Communications, we reviewed some of the many ways engineering biology can aid the fight against climate change – and how governments and policy makers can make sure humanity reaps the benefits of the technology... (MORE - details)

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A skeptic’s take on beaming solar power to Earth from space (philosophy of technology)
https://spectrum.ieee.org/space-based-solar-power-2667878868

EXCERPTS: The accelerating buildout of solar farms on Earth is already hitting speed bumps, including public pushback against the large tracts of land required and a ballooning backlog of requests for new transmission lines and grid connections. [...] Why not stick solar power plants where the sun always shines? Space-based solar power is an idea so beautiful, so tantalizing that some argue it is a wish worth fulfilling.

[...] With the flurry of renewed attention, you might wonder: Has extraterrestrial solar power finally found its moment? ... Despite mounting buzz around the concept, I and many of my former colleagues at ESA are deeply skeptical that these large and complex power systems...

[...] Here I offer a road map of the potential chasms and dead ends that could doom a premature space solar project to failure. Such a misadventure would undermine the credibility of the responsible space agency and waste capital that could be better spent improving less risky ways to shore up renewable energy, such as batteries, hydrogen, and grid improvements. Champions of space solar power could look at this road map as a wish list that must be fulfilled before orbital solar power can become truly appealing to electrical utilities... (MORE - details)
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‘Digital afterlife’: call for safeguards to prevent unwanted ‘hauntings’ by AI chatbots of dead loved ones
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1043793

EXCERPT: AI ethicists from Cambridge’s Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence outline three design scenarios for platforms that could emerge as part of the developing “digital afterlife industry”, to show the potential consequences of careless design in an area of AI they describe as “high risk”.

The research, published in the journal Philosophy and Technology, highlights the potential for companies to use deadbots to surreptitiously advertise products to users in the manner of a departed loved one, or distress children by insisting a dead parent is still “with you”... (MORE - details, no ads)

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What you aren’t hearing about marijuana’s health effects (philosophy and politics of dope)
https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-y...hfe9dcaqldf&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

EXCERPTS: . . . While marijuana use remains a federal crime, 24 states have legalized it and another 14 permit it for medical purposes. Last week media outlets reported that the Biden administration is moving to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous Schedule III drug—on par with anabolic steroids and Tylenol with codeine—which would provide tax benefits and a financial boon to the pot industry.

Bertha Madras thinks this would be a colossal mistake. Ms. Madras, 81, is a psychobiology professor at Harvard Medical School and one of the foremost experts on marijuana. “It’s a political decision, not a scientific one,” she says. “And it’s a tragic one.” In 2024, that is a countercultural view... (MORE - details)

ALTERNATIVE LINK (MSN instead of WSJ): https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/me...-about-marijuana-s-health-effects/ar-BB1mb2Ik
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