Related papers: Evolution of science I: Evolution of Mind
Science is a crowning glory of the human spirit and its applications remain our best hope for social progress. But there are limitations to current science and perhaps to any science. The general mind-body problem is known to be intractable…
As we discussed in Part I of this topic, there is a clear desire to model and comprehend human behavior. Given the popular presupposition of human reasoning as the standard for learning and decision-making, there have been significant…
This contribution argues that the notion of time used in the scientific modeling of reality deprives time of its real nature. Difficulties from logic paradoxes to mathematical incompleteness and numerical uncertainty ensue. How can the…
A hallmark of human intelligence is the ability to adapt to new situations, by applying learned rules to new content (systematicity) and thereby enabling an open-ended number of inferences and actions (generativity). Here, we propose that…
National science systems have become embedded in global science and countries do everything they can to harness global knowledge to national economic needs. However, accessing and using the riches of global knowledge can occur only through…
Evolutionary algorithm research and applications began over 50 years ago. Like other artificial intelligence techniques, evolutionary algorithms will likely see increased use and development due to the increased availability of computation,…
Enormous questions still loom for the emerging science of spontaneous thought: what, exactly, is spontaneous thought? Why does our brain engage in spontaneous forms of thinking, and when is this most likely to occur? And perhaps the…
The present article analyses the impact on cosmology, in particular on the evolution of cosmological perturbations, of the existence of extra-dimensions. The model considered here is that of a five-dimensional Anti-de Sitter spacetime where…
In a post-industrial society, the workplace is dominated primarily by Knowledge Work, which is achieved mostly through human cognitive processing, such as analysis, comprehension, evaluation, and decision-making. Many of these processes…
Computing is a critical driving force in the development of human civilization. In recent years, we have witnessed the emergence of intelligent computing, a new computing paradigm that is reshaping traditional computing and promoting…
Finding general principles underlying brain function has been appealing to scientists. Indeed, in some branches of science like physics and chemistry (and to some degree biology) a general theory often can capture the essence of a wide…
Life has a special status, it even has its own science: biology. In many ways, the logic of life seems to differ from that of atoms, molecules, planets, or any other `inanimate object'. However, life is increasingly measured using…
We are at the beginning of a new age in which artificial entities will perform significant amounts of high-level cognitive processing rivaling and even surpassing human thinking. The future belongs to those who can best collaborate with…
This review highlights brain health as a dynamic process shaped by both genetic and environmental influences throughout development. Critical periods provide unique windows of heightened neural plasticity, during which genetic-environmental…
The field of condensed matter physics had its genesis this century and it has had a remarkable evolution. A closer look at its growth reveals a hidden aim in the collective consciousness of the field - a part of the development this century…
The slime mould Physarum polycephalum has been used in developing unconventional computing devices for in which the slime mould played a role of a sensing, actuating, and computing device. These devices treated the slime mould rather as an…
A fascinating hypothesis is that human and animal intelligence could be explained by a few principles (rather than an encyclopedic list of heuristics). If that hypothesis was correct, we could more easily both understand our own…
Drawing on the idea that brain development is a Darwinian process of ``evolution + selection'' and the idea that the current state is a local equilibrium state of many bodies with self-organization and evolution processes driven by the…
We are at a stage in our evolution where we do not yet know if we will ever communicate with intelligent beings that have evolved on other planets, yet we are intelligent and curious enough to wonder about this. We find ourselves wondering…
We use language to communicate our thoughts. But is language merely the expression of thoughts, which are themselves produced by other, nonlinguistic parts of our minds? Or does language play a more transformative role in human cognition,…