Androids Zombies Brains

from SRI's Artificial Intelligence Center and ActivMedia Robotics

"If HAL believed (we can't be sure on what grounds) that his being so rendered comatose would jeopardize the whole mission, then he would be in exactly the same moral dilemma a human being in the same predicament would face. Not surprisingly, we figure out the answer to our question by figuring out what would be true if we put ourselves in Hal's place. If you believed the mission to which your life was devoted was more important, in the last analysis, than anything else, what would you do?"

Our most powerful 21st-century technologies - robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotech - are threatening to make humans an endangered species.

"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."

"Palaeoanthropologists at the Max Planck Institute, in collaboration with scientists at 454 Life Sciences Corp., of Branford, Connecticut, have begun a two-year project to sequence the neanderthal genome. The start of the Neanderthal Genome Project coincides with the 150th anniversary of the discovery of the specimen-type Homo neanderthalensis fossil in the Neander valley near Dusseldorf, Germany." (Neurophilosophy)

"One of the general characteristics that make primates unique are the larger brain sizes compared to body sizes in relation to other organism. His graph is limited in that it shows only the comparison of brain to body sizes of a tribe, within the family Hominidae, under a much larger taxonomic organization, the order Primates." (Primatology.net)

"Not many people think about what it's like to be a bat, but for those who do, it's enlightening and potentially groundbreaking for understanding aspects of the human brain and nervous system. Cynthia Moss, a member of the Neuroscience and Cognitive Science program at the University of Maryland, College Park, Md., is one of few researchers who spend time trying to get into the heads of bats."

"The new field of experimental philosophy introduces a novel twist on this traditional approach. Experimental philosophers continue the search to understand people's ordinary intuitions, but they do so using the methods of contemporary cognitive science (see also here and here)-experimental studies, statistical analyses, cognitive models, and so forth. Just in the past year or so, a number of researchers have been applying this new approach to the study of intuitions about consciousness. By studying how people think about three different types of abstract entities-a corporation, a robot and a God-we can better understand how people think about the mind." (Scientific American)

Osvath et al. Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) and orangutan (Pongo abelii) forethought: self-control and pre-experience in the face of future tool use. Animal Cognition, 2008 DOI: 10.1007/s10071-008-0157-0

Cognitive Evolution and the Definition of Human Nature. Philosophy of Science Monographs, Morris Foundation, Little Rock, Arkansas, 2000, 31pp.

"Another headline pops up: "Scientists aim to make computer that thinks like a human". And I think no, No, NO! Don't, whatever you do, do that. Even if Ray Kurzweil is the one suggesting it's coming." (Charles Arthur | Technology | guardian.co.uk)

"One of the great scientific challenges is to understand the design principles and origins of the human brain. New research has shed light on the evolutionary origins of the brain and how it evolved into the remarkably complex structure found in humans." Science Daily

"The most complex object yet discovered anywhere in the universe is the organ that fills the space between our ears. Although weighing only about 1300 to 1500 grams (three to four pounds), the human brain contains over 11 billion specialized nerve cells, or neurons, capable of receiving, processing, and relaying the electrochemical pulses on which all our sensations, actions, thoughts, and emotions depend.[2] But it is not the sheer number of neurons alone that is most striking about the brain, but how they are organized and interconnected. And to understand how neurons communicate with each other we first must consider their typical structure."

"Evidence of brain evolution can be seen in various fields of biology, such as paleontology, ethology, behavioral biology, cognitive psychology, molecular biology and genetics."

"Scientists compared the genetic sequences of ethnically and geographically diverse people from around the world and found that the genes which code for the nervous systems, had some sequence differences (known as polymorphisms) among individuals. By analyzing human and chimpanzee polymorphism patterns, genetic probabilities and various other genetic tools, and geographical distributions, they found evidence that some of these genes are experiencing ongoing positive selection in humans. They calculated that one genetic variant of microcephalin arose approximately 37,000 years ago, which coincides with the emergence of culturally modern humans, and it increased in frequency too rapidly to be compatible with random genetic drift or population migration. This suggests that it underwent positive selection.[xxi] An ASPM variant arose about 5800 years ago, coincident with the spread of agriculture, cities and the first record of written language. It too is found in such high frequencies in the population, that it indicates strong positive selection."

by Trevor Stone, University of Colorado, Boulder Issues and Methods in Cognitive Science, Spring 2002; completed Spring 2003