Related papers: Evolution of science I: Evolution of Mind

Nowadays, we have witnessed the great success of AI in various applications, including image classification, game playing, protein structure analysis, language translation, and content generation. Despite these powerful applications, there…

Intelligence is a fundamental part of all living things, as well as the foundation for Artificial Intelligence. In this primer we explore the ideas associated with intelligence and, by doing so, understand the implications and constraints…

Current evidence suggests that the cosmological constant is not zero, or that we live in an open universe. We examine the implications for the future under these assumptions, and find that they are striking. If the Universe is cosmological…

Growth in brain volume is one of the most spectacular changes in the hominid lineage. The anthropological community agrees on that point. No consensus, however, has been reached on selection pressures contributing to that growth. In that…

The emergence of the main divisions of today's life: (1) unicellular prokaryotes, (2) unicellular eukaryotes, (3) multicellular eukaryotes, and (4) metazoans, are examples of the--still unexplained--major transitions in evolution. Regarding…

Extending and modifying his domain of life by artifact production is one of the main characteristics of humankind. From the first hominid, who used a wood stick or a stone for extending his upper limbs and augmenting his gesture strength,…

Various features of the development of individual living species, including individual humans, are programmed. Is death also programmed, and if yes, how is it implemented and what can be the underlying mechanism providing the inevitability…

An often-overlooked characteristic of the human mind is its propensity to wander. Despite growing interest in the science of mind-wandering, most studies operationalize mind-wandering by its task-unrelated contents, which may be orthogonal…

The quest to comprehend the origins of intelligence raises intriguing questions about the evolution of learning abilities in natural systems. Why do living organisms possess an inherent drive to acquire knowledge of the unknown? Is this…

The question of the nature of space around us has occupied thinkers since the dawn of humanity, with scientists and philosophers today implicitly assuming that space is something that exists objectively. Here we show that this does not have…

We stand at the foot of a significant inflection in the trajectory of scientific discovery. As society continues on its fast-paced digital transformation, so does humankind's collective scientific knowledge and discourse. We now read and…

Culture evolves, not just in the trivial sense that cultures change over time, but also in the strong sense that such change is governed by Darwinian principles. Both biological and cultural evolution are essentially cumulative selection…

It is well known that life on Earth alters its environment over evolutionary and geological timescales. An important open question is whether this is a result of evolutionary optimization or a universal feature of life. In the latter case,…

The natural evolution of life seems to proceed through steps characterized by phases of relatively rapid changes, followed by longer, more stable periods. In the light of the string-theory derived physical scenario proposed in [1], we…

In this article, we employ mathematical concepts as a tool to examine the phenomenon of consciousness experience and logical phenomena. Through our investigation, we aim to demonstrate that our experiences, while not confined to…

In physics, I noticed subjects not explained by formulas were often not studied, like how uncontrolled growth systems changed form. Weather, businesses, societies, environments, communities, cultures, groups, relationships, lives, and…

Humans have created artificial intelligence (AI), not the other way around. This statement is deceptively obvious. In this note, we decided to challenge this statement as a small, lighthearted Gedankenexperiment. We ask a simple question:…

Evolution of a universe with homogeneous extra dimensions is studied with the benefit of a well-chosen parameter space that provides a systematic, useful, and convenient way for analysis. In this model we find a natural evolution pattern…

Artificial Intelligence has historically relied on planning, heuristics, and handcrafted approaches designed by experts. All the while claiming to pursue the creation of Intelligence. This approach fails to acknowledge that intelligence…

Technology is increasingly shaping our social structures and is becoming a driving force in altering human biology. Besides, human activities already proved to have a significant impact on the Earth system which in turn generates complex…