Physicist Carlo Rovelli claims that our experience of consciousness – of a “self” that is aware of itself along with the world around us — is not something separate from the natural world. Unfortunately, the headline writers at Noēma, which published his essay, entitled his piece “There’s No Hard Problem of Consciousness.” Of course there […]
Utah is likely to approve construction of a massive “hyperscale” data center to help facilitate the processing of data for AI applications. It’s an awful idea. I say that not because there’s anything wrong about the benefits its investors promise: More energy, water desalinization, and tax dollars for Utah to use for other purposes. It’s […]
Polymarket lets people bet on the likelihood of news events, thereby yielding some sort of predictive consensus on the future or, as its hosts declare, “the wisdom of the crowd.” It is nothing of the sort. To call it legalized gambling would be giving it too much credit; it’s a sham, at best, and more […]
Is consciousness not an outcome of material existence but the initial enabler for it? That’s the premise of a really cool paper I just read: space-time is an emergent phenomenon from some deeper underlying order. The author is a serious scientist who suggests actual equations that could be used to describe it. Of course, they’re […]
I just finished the last song for the gig — a twofer, no less — and now we’re ready to start rehearsing in a few weeks. The song captures Alice’s final confrontation with the Queen and subsequent awakening, followed by her sister’s revelation that she, too, can dream…
This song captures the Mock Turtle telling his story of going to school and being real (it’s called We Went To School In The Sea):
This song recaps Alice’s understanding of unlimited power, as evidenced by the Red Queen’s dictate of “cut of their heads” for any and every issue (the song is entitled “Three Gardeners”):
Thanks to spotty service by the USPS, I have started to migrate our snail mail services to digital-only. I’m doing so belatedly, perhaps, but certainly with a little bit of anger and a lot of sadness. We don’t like in some far-flung rural area; rather, we’re smack dab in the middle of downtown Chicago, so […]
Mozilla has announced that it’s forming a “rebel alliance” of AI startups to combat Anthropic, OpenAI, and the other backers of deathstar AI. It’s a cool idea that’s misguided and will ultimately fail. What’s cool about it is that Mozilla is standing up for, well, everyone who doesn’t stand to make a killing automating everyone […]
The annual meeting of the World Economic Forum just screams for counter-programming. The get-together, colloquially called “Davos” because it happens in a quaint little town in Switzerland, is billed as a place where “the foremost leaders from government, business, and civil society” can “confront shared challenges and drive innovations driving the future.” Considering all of […]