Derek Parfit - Brainspotting

An excerpt from an interview for a channel 4 documentary.

Noam Chomsky on Where Artificial Intelligence Went Wrong

Noam Chomsky on Where Artificial Intelligence Went Wrong - The Atlantic

In May of last year, during the 150th anniversary of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a symposium on "Brains, Minds and Machines" took place, where leading computer scientists, psychologists and neuroscientists gathered to discuss the past and future of artificial intelligence and its connection to the neurosciences.
The gathering was meant to inspire multidisciplinary enthusiasm for the revival of the scientific question from which the field of artificial intelligence originated: how does intelligence work? How does our brain give rise to our cognitive abilities, and could this ever be implemented in a machine? 

Noam Chomsky, speaking in the symposium, wasn't so enthused. Chomsky critiqued the field of AI for adopting an approach reminiscent of behaviorism, except in more modern, computationally sophisticated form. Chomsky argued that the field's heavy use of statistical techniques to pick regularities in masses of data is unlikely to yield the explanatory insight that science ought to offer. For Chomsky, the "new AI" -- focused on using statistical learning techniques to better mine and predict data -- is unlikely to yield general principles about the nature of intelligent beings or about cognition. 

This critique sparked an elaborate reply to Chomsky from Google's director of research and noted AI researcher, Peter Norvig, who defended the use of statistical models and argued that AI's new methods and definition of progress is not far off from what happens in the other sciences.

This Is Philosophy - The Books

This Is Philosophy - The Books:

This Is Philosophy: The Books
This Is Philosophy is just starting out as a series, and we will be adding new titles as time goes on.  For the time being, you can find more about the first book in the series, Steve Hales' This Is Philosophy, HERE, where you will find resources for the book that include a glossary of terms, vocabulary/concept comprehension self-assessment exercises, lecture slides, and instructor test banks, and links to primary sources discussed or referred to in the book.Books forthcoming in the series include This Is Philosophy of Mind (Pete Mandik, 2013); This Is Philosophy of Religion (Neil Manson); This Is Epistemology (Clayton Littlejohn); This Is Metaphysics (Kris Mcdaniel); and This Is Ethics (Jussi Suikkanen).We will continue to update the series and this website as more titles are planned and published!

Waking Life - Free will

A monologue from the movie Waking Life (2001) with philosopher David Sosa (UT Austin) speaking
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Sosa

ht: Thanks, Tad Zawidzki, for reminding me of this.

Your Eyes Are Stupid: Video by Ze Frank

Video by Ze Frank on visual illusions "Your Eyes Are Stupid":

Conscious Entities: The Cambridge Declaration

Conscious Entities: The Cambridge Declaration: 

At the Francis Crick Memorial Conference back in July the participants signed a Declaration (pdf) affirming that animals are conscious. The key passage reads:

“The absence of a neocortex does not appear to preclude an organism from experiencing affective states. Convergent evidence indicates that non-human animals have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors. Consequently, the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Nonhuman animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also
possess these neurological substrates.”

Christof Koch: Consciousness Is Everywhere

Christof Koch: Consciousness Is Everywhere:

I've been careful to stress that any network possesses integrated information. The theory is very explicit on this point: Any system whose functional connectivity and architecture yield a phi value greater than zero has at least a trifle of experience. This would certainly include the brains of bees. Just because bees are small and fuzzy does not mean that they cannot have subjective states. So, the next time a bee hovers above your breakfast, attracted by the golden nectar on your toast, gently shoo her away. She might be a fellow sentient being, experiencing her brief interlude in the light.