A human brain has 10,000,000,000 cells so a colony of 40,000 ants has collectively the same size brain as a human. If the human population is 6,760,000,000 (2009) and the ant population is 1 quadrillion 1,000,000,000,000,000 (1999). If my mathematics is correct the brain cell count of the ant population is nearly 4 times that…
The latest issue of Philosophy Now features a collection of articles on “machine morality”. The Challenge of Moral Machines Wendell Wallach tells us what the basic problems are. Four Kinds of Ethical Robots James H. Moor defines different ways in which machines could be moral. How Machines Can Advance Ethics Susan Leigh Anderson and…
In today’s Boston Globe Mickey Edwards reviews Cass Sunstein’s latest book A Constitution of Many Minds. Though I haven’t read the book, Edwards’ rather snippy and ill-informed review calls for some comments. ***************** If “A Constitution of Many Minds” reveals anything, it is that its author may teach about constitutionalism but he is at heart…
For my amusement – showing my age, eh? Apparently the “brain” was represented by Honeywell 200 consoles. The cover of Deighton’s novel is far superior (and much more sinister) than the film’s posters.
Alva Noë interviewed about his latest in Salon. (What’s so difficult about consistently using the umlaut in his name?)
This hot off the press. Jerry Fodor, you may recall, reviewed Andy Clark’s latest work Supersizing the Mind in the London Review of Books. In the latest issue, Clark uses the Letters section to respond. As this is a general link I paste in Clark’s letter below. Letters Vol. 31 No. 6 · Cover…
Oops, forgot to publish this two days ago!
Ray Kurzweil’s article from last year’s Scientific American special on robotics is reprinted again here.
I see that Martha Nussbaum is weighing in on the liberal education debate. The debate, crudely put, asks whether education should be instrumental – i.e. merely training up students to serve an economic imperative – or is there another deeper aspect to education, an intrinsic aspect, that inducts students into the postulates of our and…
I was reminded of one of the great characters of 20th Century British philosophy – C.E.M. Joad. The Wikipedia entry is impoverished: if you really want a nicely written and informed piece on Joad, you should check out my chum Geoffrey Thomas’ 44 page booklet Cyril Joad published by Birkbeck College (ISBN 090790419X). Geoff won…
manwithoutqualities 