There are as many theories about consciousness as there are definitions and the philosophical and scientific community is still far from consensus. This post represents my current understanding.
Speculations
Emergent properties misunderstood
Most systems have the properties they have because they were designed that way, either by humans or by nature, not because they “emerged”.
Quality and free energy
On Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, ISO 9000, quality, and the free energy principle.
To boldly go where no man has gone before
Eagleworks Labs giving a vision of the future. Set the throttle at warp 10 – next stop Alpha Centauri!
How can we save the elves?
Having read Sam Harris book Free Will I feel like returning just a little bit to that very topic. I wrote a few posts about it back in 2008, posts that go along the same lines as Mr. Harris. Seems like I wasn’t alone holding those particular views but as Continue Reading
The blind watchmaker and the blind hen
The parameters of the universe we inhabit are incredibly well tuned to allow life to develop. All the constants governing the four known forces of the universe, the masses of the elementary particles etc. have exactly the required values to enable complex molecules and thus life to develop. With even Continue Reading
What’s the fuss anyway?
Many people, including many scientists, go to great length to save the concept of free will. Why is that? One of the arguments is that without free will we can not be morally accountable for our actions. But is it really a sign of free will to “choose” to do Continue Reading
Repent! The singularity is near (or maybe not)
Reading the June 2008 issue of IEEE Spectrum [1] left me impressed with the courage of the editors. The whole issue was about the “singularity”, meaning the point in time when computers become powerful enough to be able to define their own future. At that point development starts accelerating as Continue Reading
Wikipedia on free will
I can’t resist this urge of mine (will?) to post yet another post on free will. I read the Wikipedia article on free will [1] (I know, I should have done a literature study covering the last 2500 or so years before hitting “Publish” but then I’d never get anything Continue Reading
More on free will
Removing randomness from quantum mechanics.