Surprising Science — June 1, 2010

Artificial Intelligence

While artificial intelligence has yet to realize its often dramatic promises, the development of brain science has led thinkers to prioritize the mind over the body as the center of the self.

bigthinkeditor

While artificial intelligence has yet to realize its often dramatic promises, the development of brain science has led thinkers to prioritize the mind over the body as the center of the self. “Is the ‘society of mind’ trying to colonize the societies of body and emotion?” asks 3 Quarks Daily. “Why ‘artificial intelligence,’ after all, and not an ‘artificial identity’ or ‘personality’? The name itself reveals a bias. Aren’t we confusing computation with cognition and cognition with identity? Is there really a little being in our brains, or contiguous with our brains, driving the body?”

a computer generated image of a human brain.

Thinking

The great free will debate featuring Michio Kaku and Steven Pinker

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

Building destroyed by the Halifax Explosion. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

The Past

The largest accidental explosion of all time

More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

a collage of photos of a man with a hat and a book.

High Culture

6 great books with wildly unreliable narrators

Dive into the twisted truths and concealed realities told by literature’s most unreliable narrators.

a group of five matches on a pink background.

The Well

Signs you’re burned out — and how to bounce back

If you don’t feel better after the weekend, the “burnout paradox” could explain why.

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7 min

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with

Laurie Santos

Starts With A Bang

The trick to instantly identifying JWST images

If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it’s a JWST image or any other observatory.

Up Next

Surprising Science

Renaming ‘Breakdown’

As diagnosis of mental illness has changed with shifting cultural attitudes, now the term “nervous breakdown” is being reevaluated. Are you on the verge of “burnout syndrome”?