“Mind uploading speculation and debate often concludes that a procedure described as gradual in-place replacement preserves personal identity while a procedure described as destructive scan-and-copy produces some other identity in the target substrate such that personal identity is lost along with the biological brain. This paper demonstrates a chain of reasoning that establishes metaphysical equivalence between these two methods in terms of preserving personal identity.” — Keith Wiley https://keithwiley.com https://www.brainpreservation.org/tea… thanks for tuning in! Please support SciFuture by subscribing and sharing! Have any ideas about people to interview? Want to be notified about future events? Any comments about the STF series? Please fill out this form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1mr9P… Kind regards, Adam Ford — Science, Technology & the Future — #SciFuture — http://scifuture.org
Category: neuroscience – Page 302
SRF Kultur Sternstunden
Daniel Dennett is one of the most influential philosophers in the world. He is an atheist, Darwinist and materialist. For him, we humans are nothing but a complex piece of matter subject to natural laws. He talks to Yves Bossart about our consciousness, illusions, freedom and faith.
German version: • Daniel Dennett im Gespräch über Geist…
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SRF Sternstunde Philosophie vom 18.02.
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Daniel Dennett — What is the Nature of Personal Identity?
What makes one a person or a self? If he or she sees, hears, thinks and feels, is that a person or a self? How can separate perceptions bind together into a coherent mental unity of a single person or self?
For all of our video interviews please visit us at www.closertotruth.com
Learning to express reward prediction error-like dopaminergic activity requires plastic representations of time
One of the variables in TD algorithms is called reward prediction error (RPE), which is the difference between the discounted predicted reward at the current state and the discounted predicted reward plus the actual reward at the next state. TD learning theory gained traction in neuroscience once it was demonstrated that firing patterns of dopaminergic neurons in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) during reinforcement learning resemble RPE5,9,10.
Implementations of TD using computer algorithms are straightforward, but are more complex when they are mapped onto plausible neural machinery11,12,13. Current implementations of neural TD assume a set of temporal basis-functions13,14, which are activated by external cues. For this assumption to hold, each possible external cue must activate a separate set of basis-functions, and these basis-functions must tile all possible learnable intervals between stimulus and reward.
In this paper, we argue that these assumptions are unscalable and therefore implausible from a fundamental conceptual level, and demonstrate that some predictions of such algorithms are inconsistent with various established experimental results. Instead, we propose that temporal basis functions used by the brain are themselves learned. We call this theoretical framework: Flexibly Learned Errors in Expected Reward, or FLEX for short. We also propose a biophysically plausible implementation of FLEX, as a proof-of-concept model. We show that key predictions of this model are consistent with actual experimental results but are inconsistent with some key predictions of the TD theory.
Scientists Identify a Speech Trait That Foreshadows Cognitive Decline
Can you pass me the whatchamacallit? It’s right over there next to the thingamajig.
Many of us will experience “lethologica”, or difficulty finding words, in everyday life. And it usually becomes more prominent with age.
Frequent difficulty finding the right word can signal changes in the brain consistent with the early (“preclinical”) stages of Alzheimer’s disease – before more obvious symptoms emerge.
A life of the mind — with Daniel Dennett
Join the late, renowned philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel C Dennett on a captivating journey of intellectual exploration through his own life.
Sign up as a member to watch the Q\&A here: • Q\&A: A life of the mind — Daniel Dennett.
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This lecture was recorded on 3 October 2023 at the Ri.
We had some difficulties with the internet connection at the beginning of this video, but it improves after that, so keep watching!
00:00 Introduction.
2:30 The importance of making mistakes.
7:30 Tools of the mind.
11:20 How can you get the right knowledge?
14:24 Douglas Hofstadter and Joosting.
19:46 Richard Dawkins and memes.
22:57 Ruth Millikan and language.
24:20 Giulio Tononi and the IIT controversy.
31:50 Descartes’ mistakes.
35:50 Daniel’s biggest mistake.
40:43 Helping philosophers and scientists to imagine.
43:07 Julian Jaynes, consciousness and dualism.
48:22 More iconoclasts of philosophy.
52:46 Karl Pribram and James Gibson.
From his formative years in Beirut to his academic pursuits at Harvard, and from the vibrant jazz clubs of Paris to his introspective musings on his tractor in Maine, discover the stories behind some of his most influential books, such as ‘Consciousness Explained’ and ‘Darwin’s Dangerous Idea’. Whose contents have reshaped our understanding of the mind, consciousness and the nature of the human experience.
Tracking Ozempic’s Nausea Side Effect to Specific Neurons May Lead to Better Drugs
The neurons that produce a sick feeling and food aversion are distinct from those that induce a feeling of fullness.
By Mariana Lenharo & Nature magazine
Next-generation anti-obesity drugs such as Wegovy can melt away weight — but they can also cause intolerable nausea. Now scientists have pinpointed a brain pathway that is involved in this common side effect, raising the prospect of effective weight-loss drugs that don’t make people sick1.
Toddlers’ brains show significant growth in cognitive skills by 16 months, study finds
Toddlers engage more regions of their brains around 16-months to help them develop important cognitive skills enabling them to follow simple instructions and control impulses. Findings from the study, led by the Universities of Bristol and Oxford, and published in Imaging Neuroscience, suggests 16 months is a critical period for brain development.
A child’s first two years of life are crucial for developing cognitive skills, particularly executive functions that help adjust thoughts, actions, and behaviours for everyday life.
Inhibitory control is one important executive function. This particular skills allows individuals to stop themselves from doing something out of impulse, habit or temptation. It’s already known that inhibitory control begins to develop in infancy and grows into early childhood. However, until now, the brain mechanisms involved in its development were unclear.
Being a ‘night owl’ is associated with mental sharpness, study finds
A study investigating the effect of sleep on brain performance has found a link between an individual’s preference for morning or evening activity and their brain function, suggesting that self-declared “night owls” generally tend to have higher cognitive scores.
Researchers at Imperial College London looked at data from more than 26,000 people to find out how different aspects of sleep—including duration, patterns, and quality—affected mental sharpness and overall cognitive ability.
Using data from the extensive UK Biobank database, they analyzed information on U.K. adults who had completed a number of cognitive tests—including whether people described themselves as a “morning person” or an “evening person,” referring to which time of the day they felt more alert and productive.
Why consciousness may have evolved to benefit society rather than individuals
Why did the experience of consciousness evolve from our underlying brain physiology? Despite being a vibrant area of neuroscience, current research on consciousness is characterised by disagreement and controversy – with several rival theories in contention.
A recent scoping review of over 1,000 articles identified over 20 different theoretical accounts. Philosophers like David Chalmers argue that no single scientific theory can truly explain consciousness.
We define consciousness as embodied subjective awareness, including self awareness. In a recent article published in Interalia (which is not peer reviewed), we argue that one reason for this predicament is the powerful role played by intuition.