Yesterday I wrote a reply to a science blogger, Bernardo Kastrup, who wrote a critique of an earlier blog post of mine. He has now written a reply to my reply. I find these blog discussions very useful – each side can take their time to compose their argument and we can usually get down to the key issues. They can also be fun.
Kastrup begins, unfortunately, with a bit of whining.
While I appreciate his having taken the time to reply, I am also somewhat surprised by the sheer amount of space he dedicates to ad homenen attacks on me, which dilutes his argument and the quality of the debate.
Sure, I got a bit snarky in my reply, but I will point out that my criticisms were all valid. Also my two sharpest barbs were direct quotes from Kastrup against me. It’s bad form, in my opinion, to open up a debate with personal attacks and then whine when you get the exact same thing back. But fine – let’s get past that and focus on the substance of the discussion. His next point, however, is also about form. He writes:
This is correct. So let me take the opportunity to be explicit: I only read the post that was forwarded to me, and my comments were based on that alone. If Novella’s position in other posts was more nuanced, I’ve missed that, since I do not know Novella’s work.
It has been a while since I wrote about dualism – the notion that the mind is something more than the functioning of the brain. Previously I had a blog duel about dualism with creationist neurosurgeon, Michael Egnor. Now someone else has jumped into that discussion: blogger, author, and computer engineer Bernardo Kastrup has taken me on directly. The result is a confused and poorly argued piece all too typical of metaphysical apologists.
Kastrup’s major malfunction is to create a straw man of my position and then proceed to argue against that. He so blatantly misrepresents my position, in fact, that I have to wonder if he has serious problems with reading comprehension or is just so blinkered by his ideology that he cannot think straight (of course, these options are not mutually exclusive). I further think that he probably just read one blog post in the long chain of my posts about dualism and so did not make a sufficient effort to actually understand my position.
Kastrup is responding specifically to this blog post by me, a response to one by Egnor. Kastrups begins with this summary:
I found it to contain a mildly interesting but otherwise trite, superficial, and fallacious argument. Novella’s main point seems to be that correlation suffices to establish causation. He claims that Egnor denies that neuroscience has found sufficient correlation between brain states and mind states because subjective mind states cannot be measured.
Deniers – those who, for whatever reason, deny the conclusions of well-established science, employ a number of strategies in their denial. Like a good illusionist, deniers are primarily involved in misdirection. I was recently reminded of one tactic of deception when the following quote was used to suggest that the materialist explanation of mind is not adequate.
J. Fodor stated in a paper published in 2001 that “So far what our cognitive science has found out about the mind is mostly that we don’t understand how it works.”
Dualists, those who believe that consciousness and the mind are something more than the material biological functioning of the brain, are, in my estimation, neuroscience deniers. They deny the current model of biological neuroscience in order to manufacture a gap, and then try to slip their dualism – their “ghost in the machine” – into that gap.
Now at this point most readers are probably thinking that we don’t fully understand how the brain works and creates the phenomenon of mind, and you are correct. But that is the misdirection – confusing the question “does A cause B” with “how does A cause B.” Let me first illustrate this denial tactic with a more established example, creationism (or evolution-denial).
The NeuroLogicaBlog covers news and issues in neuroscience, but also general science, scientific skepticism, philosophy of science, critical thinking, and the intersection of science with the media and society.
Dr. Novella is also the founder, executive editor, and regular contributor to Science-Based Medicine, a blog dedicated to issues of science and medicine.
If you would like to contact Dr. Novella to suggest a topic for this blog, ask a question, or give feedback, you can e-mail him directly at: [email protected]
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5/2/2015 – Live streaming celebration of the 10 year anniversary of the SGU. Noon to 10pm Eastern. http://www.theskepticsguide.org/sgu-10-hour-podcast-2015
I lead a rich fantasy life. I love science fiction and fantasy books and movies (current favorite show: Battlestar Galactica – really, if you like SciFi and have not seen it, check it out). I have even written fantasy role-playing supplements. I have always been able to withdraw “inside my head” and just weave a compelling fantasy to pass the time. My favorite sciences have always been paleontology and astronomy – I think because through both I was able to mentally transport myself to a completely alien and exotic time and place. And yet, despite all this, I have also made it a lifelong endeavor to make the line between fantasy and reality razor sharp and crystal clear. The same is not true, apparently, for all members of my own species.
In 1981 Wilson and Barber first identified what they called a fantasy-prone personality (FPP) type (this work actually extended from Josephine Hilgard’s observations of people who were very susceptible to hypnosis). These are people who not only lead a rich fantasy life but seem to blur the lines between fantasy and reality. They identify 14 characteristics of fantasy proneness: (1) being an excellent hypnotic subject, (2) having imaginary playmates as a child, (3) fantasizing frequently as a child, (4) adopting a fantasy identity, (5) experiencing imagined sensations as real, (6) having vivid sensory perceptions, (7) reliving past experiences, (8) claiming psychic powers, (9) having out-of-body or floating experiences, (10) receiving poems, messages, etc., from spirits, higher intelligences, and the like, (11) being involved in “healing,” (12) encountering apparitions, (13) experiencing hypnagogic hallucinations (waking dreams), and (14) seeing classical hypnagogic imagery (such as spirits or monsters from outer space). Continue Reading »
Homer: Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working like a charm. Lisa: That’s specious reasoning, Dad. Homer: Thank you, dear. Lisa: By your logic I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away. Homer: Oh, how does it work? Lisa: It doesn’t work. Homer: Uh-huh. Lisa: It’s just a stupid rock. Homer: Uh-huh. Lisa: But I don’t see any tigers around, do you? [Homer thinks of this, then pulls out some money] Homer: Lisa, I want to buy your rock. [Lisa refuses at first, then takes the exchange]
This memorable exchange from The Simpsons is one of the reasons the fictional character, Lisa Simpson, is a bit of a skeptical icon. From time to time on the show she does a descent job of defending science and reason, even toting a copy of “Jr. Skeptic” magazine (which was fictional at the time then created as a companion to Skeptic magazine).
What the exchange highlights is that it can be difficult to demonstrate (let alone “prove”) that a preventive measure has worked. This is because we cannot know for sure what the alternate history or counterfactual would have been. If I take a measure to prevent contracting COVID and then I don’t get COVID, did the measure work, or was I not going to get COVID anyway? Historically the time this happened on a big scale was Y2K – this was a computer glitch set to go off when the year changed to 2000. Most computer code only encoded the year as two digits, assuming the first two digits were 19, so 1995 was encoded as 95. So when the year changed to 2000, computers around the world would think it was 1900 and chaos would ensue. Between $300 billion and $500 billion were spent world wide to fix this bug by upgrading millions of lines of code to a four digit year stamp.
Did it work? Well, the predicted disasters did not happen, so from that perspective it did. But we can’t know for sure what would have happened if we did not fix the code. This has lead to speculation and even criticism about wasting all that time and money fixing a non-problem. There is good reason to think that the preventive measures worked, however.
At the other end of the spectrum, often doomsday cults, predicting that the world will end in some way on a specific date, have to deal with the day after. One strategy is to say that the faith of the group prevented doomsday (the tiger-rock strategy). They can now celebrate and start recruiting to prevent the next doomsday.
Should an artificial intelligence (AI) be treated like a legal “subject” or agent? That is the question discussed in a new paper by legal scholars. They recognize that this question is a bit ahead of the technology, but argue that we should work out the legal ramifications before it’s absolutely necessary. They also argue – it might become necessary sooner than we think.
One of their primary arguments is that it is technically possible for this to happen today. In the US a corporation can be considered a legal agent, or “artificial persons”, within the legal system. Corporations can have rights, because corporations are composed of people exerting their collective will. But, in some states it is not explicitly required that a corporation be headed by a human. You could, theoretically, run a corporation entirely by an AI. That AI would then have the legal rights of an artificial person, just like any other corporation. At least that’s the idea – one that can use discussion and perhaps require new legislation to deal with.
This legal conundrum, they argue, will only get greater as AI advances. We don’t even need to fully resolve the issue of narrow AI vs general AI for this to be a problem. An AI does not have to be truly sentient to behave in such a way that it creates both legal and ethical implications. They argue:
Rather than attempt to ban development of powerful AI, wrapping of AI in legal form could reduce undesired AI behavior by defining targets for legal action and by providing a research agenda to improve AI governance, by embedding law into AI agents, and by training AI compliance agents.
Basically we need a well thought-out legal framework to deal with increasingly sophisticated and powerful AIs, to make sure they can be properly controlled and regulated. It’s hard to argue with that.
In the last 18 years, since 2005, the US has decreased our CO2 emissions due to electricity generation by 32%, 819 million metric tons of CO2 per year. Thirty percent of this decline can be attributed to renewable energy generation. But 65% is attributed to essentially replacing coal-fired plants with natural gas (NG) fired plants. The share of coal decreased from 50% to 23% while the share of NG increased from 19% to 38%. Burning coal for energy released about twice as much CO2 as burning NG. Plus, NG power plants are more efficient than coal. The net result is that NG releases about 30% of the CO2 per unit of energy created as does coal.
But – the picture is more complicated than just calculating CO2 release. The implications of a true comparison between these two sources of energy has huge implications for our attempts at reducing climate change. It’s clear that we should phase out all fossil fuels as quickly as possible. But this transition is going to take decades and cost trillions. Meanwhile, we are already skirting close to the line in terms of peak warming and the consequences of that warming. We no longer have the luxury of just developing low carbon technology with the knowledge that it will ultimately replace fossil fuels. The path we take to get to net zero matters. We need to take the path that lowers greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as quickly as possible. So when we build more wind, solar, nuclear, hydroelectric, and geothermal plants, do we shut down coal, natural gas, or perhaps it doesn’t matter?
If we look just at CO2, it’s a no-brainer – coal is much worse and we should prioritize shutting down coal-fired plants. This may still be the ultimate answer, but there is another factor to consider. NG contains methane, and methane is also a GHG. Per molecule, methane causes 80 times the warming of CO2 over a 20 year period. So any true comparison between coal and NG must also consider methane. (A little methane is also released in coal mining.) But considering methane is extremely complicated, and involves choices when looking at the data that don’t have any clear right or wrong answers.
I’ve been following AI (artificial intelligence) news very closely, including all the controversies and concerns. I tend to fall on the side of – AI is a powerful tool, we should continue to develop it and use it responsibly. We don’t need to panic, and highly restrictive laws are likely unnecessary and counterproductive. But there are legitimate concerns about the power of AI, especially in the “wrong” hands. I also think the greatest disruption to our lives might not come from cyberterrorists (although a legit concern) or AI run amok, but from marketing. Giving companies who see us only as customers the power to predict our every move gives me pause.
Traditionally, song elements have been measured from large databases to identify the lyrical aspects of hits. We took a different methodological approach, measuring neurophysiologic responses to a set of songs provided by a streaming music service that identified hits and flops. We compared several statistical approaches to examine the predictive accuracy of each technique. A linear statistical model using two neural measures identified hits with 69% accuracy. Then, we created a synthetic set data and applied ensemble machine learning to capture inherent non-linearities in neural data. This model classified hit songs with 97% accuracy.
This kind of approach is called neuroforecasting – predicting people’s likes and dislikes based upon their brain activity and physiological responses (like a lie detector but for your reaction to music). First let me point out that this study used a synthetic set of data, and is therefore just a proof of concept – this approach can theoretically work. They need to test this in the real world, and see if it can predict hits, not just match the model to existing hits. But let’s assume it works, and the 97% accuracy hold up. What will this mean for the music and streaming industries?
What will be the ultimate fate of our universe? There are a number of theories and possibilities, but at present the most likely scenario seems to be that the universe will continue to expand, most mass will eventually find its way into a black hole, and those black holes will slowly evaporate into Hawking Radiation, resulting in what is called the “heat death” of the universe. Don’t worry, this will likely take 1.7×10106 years, so we got some time.
But what about objects, like stellar remnants, that are not black holes? Will the ultimate fate of the universe still contain some neutron stars and cold white dwarfs that managed to never get sucked up by a black hole? To answer this question we have to back up a bit and talk about Hawking Radiation.
Stephen Hawking famously proposed this idea in 1975 – he was asked if black holes have a temperature, and that sent him down another type of hole until Hawking Radiation popped out as the answer. But what is Hawking Radiation? The conventional answer is that the vacuum of space isn’t really nothing, it still contains the quantum fields that make up spacetime. Those quantum field do not have to have zero energy, and so occasionally virtual particles will pop into existence, always in pairs with opposite properties (like opposite charge and spin), and then they join back together, cancelling each other out. But at the event horizon of black holes, the distance at which light can just barely escape the black hole’s gravity, a virtual pair might occur where one particle gets sucked into the black hole and the other escapes. The escaping particle is Hawking Radiation. It carries away a little mass from the black hole, causing it to glow slightly and evaporate very slowly. This evaporation gets quicker as the black hole becomes less massive, until eventually it explodes in gamma radiation.
Dr. Novella is an academic clinical neurologist at Yale University School of Medicine. He is the president and co-founder of the 
Homer: Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working like a charm.
Should an artificial intelligence (AI) be treated like a legal “subject” or agent? That is the question discussed 
In the last 18 years, since 2005, the US has 
I’ve been following AI (artificial intelligence) news very closely, including all the controversies and concerns. I tend to fall on the side of – AI is a powerful tool, we should continue to develop it and use it responsibly. We don’t need to panic, and highly restrictive laws are likely unnecessary and counterproductive. But there are legitimate concerns about the power of AI, especially in the “wrong” hands. I also think the greatest disruption to our lives might not come from cyberterrorists (although a legit concern) or AI run amok, but from marketing. Giving companies who see us only as customers the power to predict our every move gives me pause.
