http://machinemachine.net/stream/feed en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Sweetcron therourke@gmail.com http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/12/garden/children-of-hoarders-on-leaving-the-cluttered-nest.html?pagewanted=all In dealing with her mother’s home in Minneapolis, Ms. Sholl has spent much of her life alternating between feeling shame about its squalid condition and attempting to rid it of the books, scraps of paper, empty food cartons and thrift-store tchotchkes littering every available surface. When she learned that her mother had cancer, in 2006, Ms. Sholl flew out for one last-ditch cleanup attempt, an effort that inspired “Dirty Secret.” “The stove was piled feet-high with dirty pans,” Ms. Sholl said. “It gnawed at me that she was living that way.” Many children of hoarders know the feeling. Even as… ]]> Fri, 04 May 2012 03:45:17 -0700 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/12/garden/children-of-hoarders-on-leaving-the-cluttered-nest.html?pagewanted=all http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/04/turing-test-revisited/artificial-intelligence-could-be-on-brink-of-passing-turing-test-wired-science-wiredcom Artificial Intelligence could be on brink of passing The Turing Test : http://t.co/oLsEJN33 ]]> Sat, 14 Apr 2012 08:37:53 -0700 http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/04/turing-test-revisited/artificial-intelligence-could-be-on-brink-of-passing-turing-test-wired-science-wiredcom http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=gamers-outdo-computers-matching-disease-genes/gamers-outdo-computers-at-matching-up-disease-genes-scientific-american An excellent example of distributed cognition. http://t.co/O3V5h1Nv – Sam Scott (bigsagacity) http://twitter.com/bigsagacity/status/184651180788551680 ]]> Tue, 27 Mar 2012 07:58:19 -0700 http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=gamers-outdo-computers-matching-disease-genes/gamers-outdo-computers-at-matching-up-disease-genes-scientific-american http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article807136.ece A stonishing animals show up everywhere these days. Cooperative apes, grief-stricken elephants, empathetic cats and dogs crowd our bookshop shelves. It’s all the rage to plumb the cognitive and emotional depths of the animal world, rejecting sceptics’ sneers of “anthropomorphism” to insist that we’re finally coming to see animals for who they really are: not so different from us. Pushing against this tide of animal awe is a competing cultural trope, the relentless seeking of human superiority. It’s from this second camp that Michael C. Corballis, a professor emeritus of psychology from New Zealand, has written The Recursive Mind: The… ]]> Fri, 28 Oct 2011 10:32:53 -0700 http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article807136.ece http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/mar/24/can-brain-explain-your-mind/?pagination=false Is studying the brain a good way to understand the mind? Does psychology stand to brain anatomy as physiology stands to body anatomy? In the case of the body, physiological functions—walking, breathing, digesting, reproducing, and so on—are closely mapped onto discrete bodily organs, and it would be misguided to study such functions independently of the bodily anatomy that implements them. If you want to understand what walking is, you should take a look at the legs, since walking is what legs do. Is it likewise true that if you want to understand thinking you should look at the parts of… ]]> Wed, 16 Mar 2011 11:30:37 -0700 http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/mar/24/can-brain-explain-your-mind/?pagination=false http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/02/is-it-time-to-welcome-our-new-computer-overlords/71388/ "Watson is a computer that uncovers meaning in our language, and pinpoints the right answer, instantly. It uses deep analytics to answer questions computers never could before, even the ones on Jeopardy!" Then a Jeopardy! clue is displayed: "Groucho quipped, 'One morning I shot' this 'in my pajamas.'"
Now, that's a provocative set of claims. Watson's performance in the tournament (despite a few howlers along the way) clearly demonstrates that it is very skilled in particular types of question-answering, and I have no doubt it could handle that Groucho clue with aplomb. But does that mean that Watson "understands"… ]]> Thu, 17 Feb 2011 16:38:15 -0700 http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/02/is-it-time-to-welcome-our-new-computer-overlords/71388/ http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=4zYzG8bHA5oC&lpg=PP1&ots=G_V3DQxB0x&dq=Wolfgang%20Krohn%20Self-organization%3A%20Portrait%20of%20a%20Scientific%20Revolution&pg=PA64#v=onepage&q=Wolfgang%20Krohn%20Self-organization%3A%20Portrait%20of by Niklas Luhmann

The source of a distinction's guaranteeing reality lies in its own operative unity. It is, however, precisely as this unity that the distinction cannot be observed--except by means of another distinction which then assumes the function of a guarantor of reality. Another way of expressing this is to say the operation emerges simultaneously with the world which as a result remains cognitively unapproachable to the operation. The conclusion to be drawn from this is that the connection with the reality of the external world is established by the blind spot of the cognitive operation.… ]]> Fri, 12 Nov 2010 08:10:00 -0700 http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=4zYzG8bHA5oC&lpg=PP1&ots=G_V3DQxB0x&dq=Wolfgang%20Krohn%20Self-organization%3A%20Portrait%20of%20a%20Scientific%20Revolution&pg=PA64#v=onepage&q=Wolfgang%20Krohn%20Self-organization%3A%20Portrait%20of http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/books/01lit.html?pagewanted=all This layered process of figuring out what someone else is thinking — of mind reading — is both a common literary device and an essential survival skill. Why human beings are equipped with this capacity and what particular brain functions enable them to do it are questions that have occupied primarily cognitive psychologists.

Now English professors and graduate students are asking them too. They say they’re convinced science not only offers unexpected insights into individual texts, but that it may help to answer fundamental questions about literature’s very existence: Why do we read fiction? Why do we… ]]> Tue, 06 Apr 2010 12:04:00 -0700 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/books/01lit.html?pagewanted=all http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2010/04/religion-religious-lewis Atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens confront the faithful head-on, but there may be another way to dispel religious beliefs.

I am not so sure about this. In my experience, waverers and Sunday-only observers can find forthright challenges to religious pretensions
a relief and a liberation. They give them the reason, sometimes the courage, to abandon those shreds of early-acquired religious habit that cling around their ankles and trip them up.

Still, Darwin and David Lewis-Williams have a point in thinking, as the former put it, that "direct arguments against [religion] produce… ]]> Sun, 04 Apr 2010 06:56:00 -0700 http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2010/04/religion-religious-lewis http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/2009/11/the_cognitive_benefits_of_time-space_synaesthesia.php SYNAESTHESIA is a neurological condition in which there is a merging of the senses, so that activity in one sensory modality elicits sensations in another. Although first described by Francis Galton in the 1880s, little was known about this condition until recently. A rennaissance in synaesthesia research began about a decade ago; since then, three previously unrecognized forms of the condition have been described, and hypotheses for how it arises have been put forward. Two new studies now provide some insight into time-space synaesthesia, the least researched of all the forms of this fascinating condition. One is a case study… ]]> Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:11:00 -0700 http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/2009/11/the_cognitive_benefits_of_time-space_synaesthesia.php http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/09/27/thinking_literally/?page=full Drawing on philosophy and linguistics, cognitive scientists have begun to see the basic metaphors that we use all the time not just as turns of phrase, but as keys to the structure of thought. By taking these everyday metaphors as literally as possible, psychologists are upending traditional ideas of how we learn, reason, and make sense of the world around us. The result has been a torrent of research testing the links between metaphors and their physical roots, with many of the papers reading as if they were commissioned by Amelia Bedelia, the implacably literal-minded children’s book hero. Researchers have… ]]> Mon, 28 Sep 2009 08:59:00 -0700 http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/09/27/thinking_literally/?page=full http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/ability-literally-imagine-oneself-anothers-shoes-may-be-tied-empathy-22592.html Empathy involves, in part, the ability to simulate the internal states of others. The authors hypothesized that our ability to manipulate, rotate and simulate mental representations of the physical world, including our own bodies, would contribute significantly to our ability to empathize. "Our language is full of spatial metaphors, particularly when we attempt to explain or understand how other people think or feel. We often talk about putting ourselves in others' shoes, seeing something from someone else's point of view, or figuratively looking over someone's shoulder," Sohee Park, report co-author and professor of psychology, said. "Although future work is needed… ]]> Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:42:00 -0700 http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/ability-literally-imagine-oneself-anothers-shoes-may-be-tied-empathy-22592.html