Oct 23, 2024 05:25 PM
Independence of mind requires sustained submission to authority.
https://hedgehogreview.com/web-features/...ndividuals
EXCERPTS: Learning requires that a student place trust in a teacher, or in an authoritative text, without yet knowing if the trust is warranted. One has to trust that the teacher knows what he is talking about [...] The necessity of trust in education is not much appreciated because it sits uncomfortably with our public creed of individualism. Individualism tacitly posits a kind of epistemic self-sufficiency that everyone has by default, or can achieve simply by following a clearly stated method of reasoning (“critical thinking skills”), applied to “information” that is readily available. [...] The paradoxical thesis I wish to consider is this: Real independence of mind can be won only by a sustained process of submission to authority. There is a related paradox: A democratic society, precisely because it requires such independence of thought if it is to be something other than mob rule, requires education conducted with an aristocratic ethos... (MORE - details)
The developmental roots of aphantasia nescience
https://junkyardofthemind.com/blog/2024/...-nescience
EXCERPTS: Aphantasia is a recently coined cognitive norm variant characterized by a severe deficiency or complete absence of voluntary mental imagery, most commonly the inability to visualize [...] In what follows, I will outline an answer to the question of how aphantasics can remain in a state of ignorance (or, in my own terminology, nescience) about their aphantasia.
Puzzle of aphantasia nescience (PAN): How is it possible that aphantasics remain unaware of their inability to visualize (i.e., remain in a state of aphantasia nescience)?
The argument that I will outline is that it is the aphantasics’ ability to express a certain type of behavior, instead of any failed introspection, that explains the phenomenon of aphantasia nescience. Furthermore, I will argue that the solution to the PAN lies in the early developmental stages, especially the stage where the aphantasic child learns to use and respond to certain terms such as ‘visualize’ or ‘imagine’... (MORE - details)
The death and rebirth of attention
https://iai.tv/articles/the-death-and-re..._auid=2020
EXCERPT: Attention is the basis of our free will, allowing us to direct our minds as we choose. Technology poses a threat to this individual agency, writes Carolyn Dicey Jennings, but may also yield new rewards. Social media harnesses our attention for incentives that aren’t our own, sublimating it into the interests of the group. We are trading our individual power for collective power, and we need to understand the risks and benefits of doing this.
Are brains and AI converging?—an excerpt from ‘ChatGPT and the Future of AI: The Deep Language Revolution’
https://www.thetransmitter.org/large-lan...evolution/
EXCERPT: My new book, “ChatGPT and the Future of AI: The Deep Language Revolution,” takes a look at the origins of large language models and the research that will shape the next generation of AI. (I continue to cover this topic in my substack, Brains and AI.) This excerpt describes how the evolution of language influenced large language models and explores how concepts from neuroscience and AI are converging to push both fields forward.
Srinivasa Ramanujan was a genius. Math is still catching up.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/srinivasa...-20241021/
INTRO: More than 100 years later, mathematicians are still trying to catch up to Ramanujan’s divine genius, as his visions appear again and again in disparate corners of the world of mathematics.
https://hedgehogreview.com/web-features/...ndividuals
EXCERPTS: Learning requires that a student place trust in a teacher, or in an authoritative text, without yet knowing if the trust is warranted. One has to trust that the teacher knows what he is talking about [...] The necessity of trust in education is not much appreciated because it sits uncomfortably with our public creed of individualism. Individualism tacitly posits a kind of epistemic self-sufficiency that everyone has by default, or can achieve simply by following a clearly stated method of reasoning (“critical thinking skills”), applied to “information” that is readily available. [...] The paradoxical thesis I wish to consider is this: Real independence of mind can be won only by a sustained process of submission to authority. There is a related paradox: A democratic society, precisely because it requires such independence of thought if it is to be something other than mob rule, requires education conducted with an aristocratic ethos... (MORE - details)
The developmental roots of aphantasia nescience
https://junkyardofthemind.com/blog/2024/...-nescience
EXCERPTS: Aphantasia is a recently coined cognitive norm variant characterized by a severe deficiency or complete absence of voluntary mental imagery, most commonly the inability to visualize [...] In what follows, I will outline an answer to the question of how aphantasics can remain in a state of ignorance (or, in my own terminology, nescience) about their aphantasia.
Puzzle of aphantasia nescience (PAN): How is it possible that aphantasics remain unaware of their inability to visualize (i.e., remain in a state of aphantasia nescience)?
The argument that I will outline is that it is the aphantasics’ ability to express a certain type of behavior, instead of any failed introspection, that explains the phenomenon of aphantasia nescience. Furthermore, I will argue that the solution to the PAN lies in the early developmental stages, especially the stage where the aphantasic child learns to use and respond to certain terms such as ‘visualize’ or ‘imagine’... (MORE - details)
The death and rebirth of attention
https://iai.tv/articles/the-death-and-re..._auid=2020
EXCERPT: Attention is the basis of our free will, allowing us to direct our minds as we choose. Technology poses a threat to this individual agency, writes Carolyn Dicey Jennings, but may also yield new rewards. Social media harnesses our attention for incentives that aren’t our own, sublimating it into the interests of the group. We are trading our individual power for collective power, and we need to understand the risks and benefits of doing this.
Are brains and AI converging?—an excerpt from ‘ChatGPT and the Future of AI: The Deep Language Revolution’
https://www.thetransmitter.org/large-lan...evolution/
EXCERPT: My new book, “ChatGPT and the Future of AI: The Deep Language Revolution,” takes a look at the origins of large language models and the research that will shape the next generation of AI. (I continue to cover this topic in my substack, Brains and AI.) This excerpt describes how the evolution of language influenced large language models and explores how concepts from neuroscience and AI are converging to push both fields forward.
Srinivasa Ramanujan was a genius. Math is still catching up.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/srinivasa...-20241021/
INTRO: More than 100 years later, mathematicians are still trying to catch up to Ramanujan’s divine genius, as his visions appear again and again in disparate corners of the world of mathematics.