Ep17 "What is consciousness?"

When AI gets the right answer, how do we know it got there the right way? Why do we assume that fluent language means intelligence? What do infants and chatbots have in common? What do AI’s mistakes teach us about our own minds? And what does any of this have to do with Frankenst ...  Show more

How can we use 26 symbols to capture everything in the cosmos of human experience? Where do our written symbols in English come from? What ancient ghosts are still hiding inside the letters you read every day? Does learning to read reconfigure the circuitry of your brain? Does dy ...  Show more

It's pretty obvious to each of us that we are conscious, as we go about our days and feel the experience of just ‘being ourselves'. But how do we know that someone else is conscious?

It’s something we lose during dreamless sleep, under anaesthesia or in a coma. But wha ...

How did consciousness come into existence?

Looking for a link we mentioned? It's here: https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes

'Steven Pinker and Sam Harris have a ...

What does consciousness mean? How artists, writers and scientists understood consciousness in the 19th and 20th centuries. 

Philosophers have long pondered the concept of a brain in a jar, hooked up to a simulated world. Though this has largely remained a thought experiment, CrowdScience listener JP wants to know if it might become reality in the not-too-distant future, with advances in stem cell r ...