Results for “Thinking Machines”

…25150 with wit and arresting thought experiments—Dennett shows how culture enables reflection by installing a bounty of thinking tools, or memes, in our brains. Language, itself composed of memes, turbocharged this interplay. The result, a mind that can comprehend the questions i...

…that occur again and again throughout life. This was the goal of the design, pure and simple: to help students practice thinking. It really doesn’t matter what arena they are thinking in. We get them interested in thinking by having them think about something that interests them...

…sed. Ditto in 2012, when negotiations in February, May and June each ended in failure. Washington went into those talks thinking they were going to succeed on the theory that Tehran desperately wants relief from the supposedly crippling pressure of economic sanctions. Why does th...

…on was made between two destinations, the caudate nucleus rapidly updated its signal. Before choosing, it might signal "thinking of something great" while imagining both Greece and Thailand. But after choosing Greece, it now broadcast "thinking of something remarkable!" for Greec...

I met Seth Lloyd in the late 1980s, when new ways of thinking were everywhere: the importance of biological organizing principles, the computational view of mathematics and physical processes, the emphasis on parallel networks, the importance of nonlinear dynamics, the new unders...

…oretical supersystems. In our model, with the reflexive stage of development, we expand this definition of metasystemic thinking to include the ability to consciously refine one’s own mental states and formalisms of thinking. Such self-reflexive re- finement is necessary for lear...

…ationship-tools-monogamy-polyamory- competition-and-jealousy/ EVOLUTION: [storytime] You Don't Always Know What You're Thinking I wrote this in late 2010. I have mixed feelings about it now. I think I made important points, but I will also say this: if you don't have a clue wha...

I met Seth Lloyd in the late 1980s, when new ways of thinking were everywhere: the importance of biological organizing principles, the computational view of mathematics and physical processes, the emphasis on parallel networks, the importance of nonlinear dynamics, the new unders...

…ne of his early quotes said, "I created Libya, and I can destroy it." Are Qadhafi and other deposed leaders deluded in thinking all is well in their kingdom or their country? Deluded isn't quite the word, because if you're surrounded by a group of sycophants who tell you what y...

…purpose of this class is to give students a sense of the historical battles of the Internet, what different actors were thinking, what they were trying to accomplish, and what levers they pulled in order to select for specific outcomes. Students should apply what they have learne...

…the invention of writing and tallying. Much the same holds for the worry that AGIs might get so good, qualitatively, at thinking, that humans would be to them as insects are to humans. All thinking is a form of computation, and any computer whose repertoire includes a universal s...

…academic subjects.. We should or- ganize universities around the kinds of work people do, where work means the kinds of thinking that they engage in, not the machines that they play with. Anyway that’s my suggestion. AN IMAGINED FIRST YEAR IN COLLEGE We all know that what I pro...

…ys be easy because it will require us, as we'll see, to consider some ideas that make no sense using our current way of thinking. But, remember: The idea of a democracy sounded like a laughable joke to hereditary heads of state until the 18% century — Let the peasants vote for wh...

…branch is looking for "highly motivated and energetic" interns to assist their agents part-time or full-time. If you're thinking to yourself, who?, it's the agency founded by Jean-Luc Brunel, the guy who first signed Christy Turlington when she was just fourteen. Responsibilities...

…How do I keep myself safe? In the modern Western world, for the most part you don’t spend a large fraction of your life thinking about those purposes. From the point of view of a thousand years ago, some of the goals people have today would seem utterly bizarre—for example, like...