Video Player Creativity: The Mind, Machines, and Mathematics: Public Debate

Two of the sharpest minds in the computing arena spar gamely, but neither scores a knockdown in one of the oldest debates around: whether machines may someday achieve consciousness. (NB: Viewers may wish to brush up on the work of computer pioneer Alan Turing and philosopher John Searle in preparation for this video.)

By MIT World

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Near-death myth alive and kicking

Most of us have a reasonable idea of what the near-death experience (NDE) is. It’s said to happen when you are in the actual process of dying, and you hear strange noises, then feelings of blissful peace and joy sweep over you.

You then float out of your body, seeing it from above, and head towards a tunnel and you enter the tunnel. At the far end of the tunnel is a bright light, but as you get close to the light, you are met by someone, already dead, who tells you that this is not yet your time, and regretfully, you are plunged back to our prosaic planet with other Earthlings.

In a nutshell, the common beliefs are that the NDE happens only to those who are dying, and that it is also proof of an afterlife. But neither belief is correct.

By Karl S. Kruszelnicki (ABC Science)

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How Your Mind Really Works

How is it that your mind is capable of handling new situations you’ve never previously encountered? How do you solve a problem you’ve never solved before? Is this just the magic of consciousness, or is there an underlying process — or algorithm — your mind uses behind the scenes to deal with the unique experiences you encounter each day? And if there is a process, how can you use it to improve your ability to think?

By Steve Pavlina (StevePavlina.com)

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David Meyer and Tendzin Choegyal: Can computers have consciousness?

Many people are questioning today what consciousness really is. How will this concept be defined? Watch this interesting video that highlights some of the issues:

Our Mind Electric?

Are our thoughts made of electricity? Not the familiar kind of electrical signals that travel up and down wires in our computer or nerves in our brain, but the distributed kind of electromagnetic field that permeates space and carries the broadcast signal to the TV or radio.

By Liezel Tipper (Innovations Report)

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Virtual reality affects perception

The human psyche is now, more than ever, affected by the abstract environment that we create for ourselves through virtual realities and technology.

James Blascovich, co-director of the Research Center for Virtual Environments and Behavior at the University of California, Santa Barbara, spoke Friday about the market of virtual reality.

He is a guest speaker of the Institute for Prospective Cognition.

“Our test was to define consciousness,” Blascovich said.

Virtual reality is a product of consciousness, according to Blascovich. For most of us, the Earth is our grounded reality and screens and games are our virtual reality.

By Alyssa Siegele (Daily Vidette)

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Can consciousness be artificially created?

Suggested by Pocholo Peralta (Plato On-line)

Some of the most profound questions in science are also the least tangible.

A physician and cell biologist who won a 1972 Nobel Prize for his work describing the structure of antibodies, Edelman is now obsessed with the enigma of human consciousness—except that he does not see it as an enigma. In Edelman’s grand theory of the mind, consciousness is a biological phenomenon and the brain develops through a process similar to natural selection.

We construct what we call brain-based devices, or BBDs, which will be increasingly useful in understanding how the brain works and modeling the brain. They may also be the beginning of the design of truly intelligent machines.

Article by Susan Kruglinski (Discover Magazine)

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Attentional Blink and the Stream of Consciousness

A very interesting article suggested by Pocholo Peralta (Plato On-line):

Just how frequent these cracks are is demonstrated by a classic study which was the first in the psychological literature to report the phenomenon of ‘attentional blink’ (Broadbent and Broadbent, 1987; PDF). These researchers were inspired by unpublished reports that participants in psychology studies, after focusing their attention on a particular target, showed a strange gap in their attention — a kind of blind spot.

By Psyblog

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Mind, Nature, and Evolution: Is it Matter or Spirit?‎

What drives the evolution of life?‎

Most people associate mind and intelligence mainly with humans and only marginally with other highly evolved animals. We tend to regard humankind as separate from the rest of nature, a different order of being. In pre-modern times this was not so.

By Willie Maartens

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Doubting Darwin: Debate Over The Mind’s Evolution

A century and a half after Charles Darwin published his theory of evolution, some still doubt its ability to explain the emergence of human beings and other forms of life.

These days, some Darwin skeptics are focusing on the human brain. They say a higher power must be involved; otherwise, how could a bunch of cells produce such complicated mental processes as consciousness or subjective experiences? How could something like free will be the result of evolution?

By NPR

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The Quantum Apocalypse

The Quantum Apocalypse Video

Lifting of the veil, to uncover the true nature of one’s self, to penetrate the surface of reality, the disclosure of hidden information, escaping the traps of lingusitic contructs, the evolution of consciousness, awakening of perception to the mysteries which lie beyond the ordinary range of human knowledge.

Thoughts on unconscious perception

Modern studies of consciousness actually date back to the last quarter of the nineteenth century when the comparatively new science of psychology started to emerge from its roots in philosophy and physiology.

By  John Cowley (Helium)

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The Mystery of Consciousness

It shouldn’t be surprising that research on consciousness is alternately exhilarating and disturbing. No other topic is like it. As René Descartes noted, our own consciousness is the most indubitable thing there is.

By Steven Pinker (Time Magazine)

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Is Mind Beyond Matter?

I just found this today and wanted to open up some talk about it as the following seems to lean towards Mind being a kind of energy that’s not necessarily electromagnetic.

By Marley Jansen (Tribe)

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