Theodore A Hoppe

YouTube video by goto11tv Spinal Tap - "These go to eleven...."

"11" That extra push over the cliff

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xgx...

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) cost the federal government $99.8 billion in fiscal year 2024, with an average of 41.7 million participants per month.

Word of the day: mendacious

YouTube video by MarkRonsonVEVO Mark Ronson, RAYE - Suzanne (Official Video)

I love Raye, and this new song has some of her best lyrics

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev9G...

YouTube video by The Institute of Art and Ideas How octopuses challenge our idea of consciousness | Peter Godfrey-Smith

Peter Godfrey-Smith on the "spectrum of consciousness."

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YqS...

YouTube video by The Science and Cocktails Foundation How Religion evolved and why it endures with Robin Dunbar

Science & Cocktails is proud to present an episode with Robin Dunbar, world-renowned evolutionary psychologist working at the social and evolutionary neuroscience group at the University of Oxford.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_BR...

Use it or lose it

www.uq.edu.au/news/article...

YouTube video by Michael Solomon Bill Evans most famous performance

Because it's getting later and because it's Tueday

www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLmt...

I must give this a listen to find out if the collider will be named the "Larger Hadron Collider."

Q: Why is there less social engagement, less discussion, and commenting on Blueky?

The real issue might be that we anthropomorphize machines by projecting our language (e.g., "learn," "understand," "think") onto them.
Just as importantly, we project the question of consciousness onto them, even though we barely understand it in ourselves.

This leads to a dilemma:
If consciousness requires feeling, and
If feeling requires a living body,
Then, machines cannot be conscious, at least not in the same sense.

We ask whether machines can be conscious even though:

We don’t have a solid definition,
We don’t understand the mechanism in biological organisms,
And machines don’t have feelings—arguably a necessary substrate for consciousness (if affect is fundamental).

But these are descriptive rather than explanatory. They gesture at the phenomenology—the "what it’s like"—without explaining how or why that experience arises.

There is no consensus on a definition of consciousness. Philosophers, neuroscientists, and cognitive scientists typically fall back on descriptions like:
“What it is like to feel something” (Nagel's phrasing),
Subjective experience,
Awareness of internal or external states.

How People Use Claude for Support, Advice, and Companionship Anthropic is an AI safety and research company that's working to build reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems.

Do we really need this?

www.anthropic.com/news/how-peo...

AI Already Knows Us Too Well Chatbots profile our personalities, which could give them the keys to drive our thoughts—and actions

How do we measure and model a person's subjectivity?
A "digital twin."

nautil.us/ai-already-k...

YouTube video by Sana How the universe thinks without a brain | Claire L. Evans

What’s in this video:
The magical transformation of rocks into computers
Slime molds: nature's unexpected network optimizers
Thinking with a body: the art of morphological computing
The surprising intelligence of single-celled organisms
Rethinking memory and learning
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwr1...

YouTube video by Closer To Truth Alex Gómez-Marín - The Field of Consciousness Studies

What is the current state of the consciousness studies field? What are the major issues and trends? What kinds of experiments are being conducted? What kinds of arguments are being made?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Hrv...

A neural basis for distinguishing imagination from reality Dijkstra et al. show that our brain distinguishes imagination from reality by monitoring how strongly the fusiform gyrus is activated. When imagined and real images produce similar activity, people ca...

"Our results demonstrate that a key mechanism through which the brain distinguishes imagination from reality is by monitoring the activity of the mid-level visual cortex."

www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...

Gilles Martin identifies neurons associated with the suppression of binge drinking UMass Chan researchers identify neural ensemble that suppresses binge drinking

“This is exciting because we are starting to understand how only a handful of cells are involved in very specific behaviors."

www.umassmed.edu/news/news-ar...

Phillip, why are you attacking @hossenfelder.bsky.social video instead of addressing the actual research paper she's reportig about?

YouTube video by JJ Medicine Coffee and the Brain (Default Mode Network, Visual Cortex, Right Executive Control Network)

In this lesson, we discuss new research looking at the effects of caffeine and coffee (including other non-caffeine substances in coffee) on brain activity and functioning.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkXV...

Your left and right brain hear language differently − a neuroscientist explains how Left and right brains hear speech differently, yet how this divide forms was unclear − until mouse studies showed each hemisphere runs on its own developmental clock.

"Our findings suggest that this early dominance of the right hemisphere in encoding sound information might amplify its control of auditory processing, deepening the imbalance between hemispheres."

theconversation.com/your-left-an...

Dancing brainwaves – how sound reshapes your brain networks in real time What happens inside your brain when you hear a steady rhythm or musical tone? According to a new study from Aarhus University and the University of Oxford, your brain doesn’t just hear it—it reorganiz...

“This could change how we study brain responses to music and beyond, including consciousness, mind-wandering, and broader interactions with the external world.”

health.au.dk/en/display/a...

How Much Energy Does It Take To Think? | Quanta Magazine Studies of neural metabolism reveal our brain’s effort to keep us alive and the evolutionary constraints that sculpted our most complex organ.

"Surprisingly, they concluded that effortful, goal-directed tasks use only 5% more energy than restful brain activity. In other words, we use our brain just a small fraction more when engaging in focused cognition than when the engine is idling."

www.quantamagazine.org/how-much-ene...

Why Sacred Values Are Dangerous Sacred values may signify that one has a conscience, but they also have a dark side.

Do you believe strongly enough in your position(s) that you think it would be appropriate to force it on society if you could?
thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/why-sacred-v...

How That Robot Made Me Feel Do robots, or the AI that is driving them, have emotions? That is a hotly debated topic—both in science fiction, where such assertions are a staple of ...

Interesting book, terrible title.

mitpress.mit.edu/978026255094...

How That Robot Made Me Feel Do robots, or the AI that is driving them, have emotions? That is a hotly debated topic—both in science fiction, where such assertions are a staple of ...

Interesting book, terrible title.

mitpress.mit.edu/978026255094...

Mentalism, mind reading and the art of getting inside your head "Magic is a great analogy for how we edit reality and form a story -- and then mistake that story for the truth," says psychological illusionist Derren Brown. In a clever talk wrapped around a dazzlin...

For your amusement and entertainment.

www.ted.com/talks/derren...