This article is really creating a buzz (sorry!!) The idea has some resonance to an aspect of Hayek’s social epistemology (see the article that I just today uploaded).
In much the same way that synapses are strengthened while unused linkages weaken and wither away, so too are paths to salient social knowledge strengthened or weakened – “social connectionism,” if you will.
Here is a draft of my entry for the SAGE Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Social Sciences.
Alva Noë takes the Opinionator slot.
What is striking about neuroaesthetics is not so much the fact that it has failed to produce interesting or surprising results about art, but rather the fact that no one — not the scientists, and not the artists and art historians — seem to have minded, or even noticed. What stands in the way of success in this new field is, first, the fact that neuroscience has yet to frame anything like an adequate biological or “naturalistic” account of human experience — of thought, perception, or consciousness.
Hat-tip to my chum David Livingstone Smith for bringing my attention to this article in Slate.
Namit Arora in a themed issue of Philosophy Now considers the complexity of consciousness and its implications for artificial intelligence.
But despite the big advances in computing, AI has fallen woefully short of its ambition and hype. Instead, we have ‘expert’ systems that process predetermined inputs in specific domains, perform pattern matching and database lookups, and algorithmically learn to adapt their outputs. Examples include chess software, search engines, speech recognition, industrial and service robots, and traffic and weather forecasting systems. Machines have done well with tasks that we ourselves can pursue algorithmically (ie, in a series of small specifiable steps) – as in searching for the word ‘ersatz’ in an essay, making cappuccino, or restacking books on a library shelf. But so much else that defines our intelligence remains well beyond machines – such as using our creativity and imagination to understand new contexts and their significance, or figuring out how and whynew sensory stimuli are relevant or not. Why is AI in such a brain-dead state? Is there any hope for it? Let’s take a closer look.
The publisher has finally got a page up for Paul and my Companion. We’re getting there . . . click on the graphic below and our dedicated page for more details.
Here’s a recent article from The Guardian. The brain in the clip turns from red to solid yellow during climax.
The latest and final issue of EPISTEME is now available. As of the next issue (9) EPISTEME will be published by Cambridge University Press.
manwithoutqualities 