Androids Zombies Brains

By Merlin Donald, Steven Mithen, Reply by Howard Gardner In response to Evolutionary Psychology: An Exchange (October 9, 1997) - The New York Review of Books

Noesis VI: Article 4

Language is a spontaneously evolved emergent adaptation, not a formal computational system. Its structure does not derive from either innate or social instruction but rather self-organization and selection. Its quasi-universal features emerge from the int

Kim Sterelney. The Baldwin Effect and Its Significance: A Review of Bruce Weber and David Depew (eds) Evolution and Learning: The Baldwin Effect Reconsidered; MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass 2003, pp x, 341.

There is a new paper coming out in PNAS called Neanderthal brain size at birth provides insights into the evolution of human life history (Afarensis)

Artist and researcher Mitchell Whitelaw wrote an interesting and in-depth article on the links between audio-visual fusion art and synaesthesia for the Senses and Society journal. Whitelaw has just put the piece online, has illustrated it with embedded videos of some of the stunning pieces he references, but also discusses the neuroscience of synaesthesia with considerable care and insight. (Mind Hacks)

"Coined by the late transhumanist Alexander Chislenko, the term "fyborg" is a portmanteau of 'functional' and 'cyborg'. It refers to the utilisation of technological tools external to the body, which is supposedly a more popular notion than having surgery to implant the technology. So, while a cyborg would use a mathematical processing chip implanted into his brain, a fyborg would use a calculator or notebook computer to perform any difficult calculations. A cyborg may have an artificial eye overlaying an interface onto the world, but a fyborg may achieve the same thing by wearing high-tech glasses." (Human Enhancement and Biopolitics)

The problem of consciousness is understanding how this world is there for us. It shows up in our senses. It shows up in our thoughts. Our feelings and interests and concerns are directed to and embrace this world around us. We think, we feel, the world shows up for us. To me that's the problem of consciousness. That is a real problem that needs to be studied, and it's a special problem.

"A new study published online in Brain searched for letter-colour synaesthetes in 6-8 year old children and found not only are they relatively common, but that the condition changes as the children grow." (Mind Hacks)

'The Pentagon's Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program recently sent out a call for contractors to design a pack of robots whose main purpose would be to track down what the SBIR ominously referred to as "noncooperative human subject[s]."' | Media and Technology | AlterNet

"Is the human mind a relatively inflexible program bequeathed to us by evolution, and culture just a veneer that gives age-old urges a respectable cover? Or our minds largely the product of language, culture, and civilization, with evolution having supplied only the most basic hardware and operating system? John and Ken welcome Leda Cosmides to shed some light on the human mind."

Carruthers defends the idea that our knowledge of our own attitudes results from turning our mindreading capacities upon ourselves, not from introspection for propositional attitudes. (Deric Bownds' MindBlog)

Robots.net recently featured the Whole Brain Emulation Roadmap (pdf) produced by the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University.

A world-famous patient with a brain injury that restricts his vision can see coloured stars in his blind field - but only when stimulated with an electromagnetic coil. (28 October 2008 - New Scientist)

Wired Science has an interesting preview of an upcoming study that used hypnosis to induce colour-number synaesthesia in highly hypnotisable participants. (Mind Hacks)

YouTube video on human evolution. « Neuroanthropology

Draft for Phenomenology and Cognition (2006); Dennett replies to critics