‘Wake Enhancement’: Is sleep better than medicine? Are well rested people happier and more productive people? Generally anecdotal feedback from grinders, transhumanists and futurists that I have met with often get into the habit of loosing sleep, and depending on coffee or other nutropics like modafinil to get through the day – while this can…
Panel on the Perils of Prediction where Lawrence Krauss , Steve Omohundro and Ben Goertzel set sail on an epic adventure careening through the perilous waves of prediction! And the seas are angry my friends! Our future stands upon the prow our past drowns in the wake. Our most foolish sailors leave the shore without…
David Pearce and I recently discussed relating Buddhism to the abolitionist project – both have the reduction of suffering located at the heart of their purposes. However, is there a necessary connection between desire and suffering? David argues no – highlighting a difference between emphasis of a traditional Buddhist approach to mitigating suffering through the…
There is an interesting discussion at Quanta “Solution: ‘Is Infinity Real?’” – Is infinity a real physical phenomenon outside our models? Max Tegmark doesn’t think so – while admitting it is indisputably useful for mathematical models of physics, he believes that nothing is truly continuous – including space and time. Would an infinitely X* phenomenon…
Why are some people so skeptical of the possibility of Super-intelligent Machines, while others take it quite seriously? Hugo de Garis addresses both ‘Singularity Skepticism’ and advocacy – reasons for believing machine intelligence is not only possible but quite probable! The Singularity will likely be an unprecedentedly huge issue that we will need to face…
Sundance describes particle physics and covers two grand unifying theories: super string theory and quantum loop gravity, then discusses the distribution of beliefs among experts on grand unifying theories and concludes by emphasisng the need for a wider research program in physics (and science in general) – as well as the funding to back it…
In this interview, Sundance covers his background in physics, the value of fundamental research in physics (and science in general), and finding physics aesthetically pleasing. Sundance Osland Bilson-Thompson is an Australian theoretical particle physicist. He has developed the idea that certain preon models may be represented topologically, rather than by treating preons as pointlike particles….
James Hughes the Executive Director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, is a bioethicist and sociologist at Trinity College in Hartford Connecticut where he teaches health policy and serves as Director of Institutional Research and Planning. Dr. Hughes is a Fellow of the World Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of Humanity+, the Neuroethics Society,…
Slides [here], See this post by John Wilkins at Evolving Thoughts, the video is a talk John gave at the Philosophy of Science conference in Melbourne 2014. Every so often, somebody will attack the worth, role or relevance of philosophy on the internets, as I have discussed before. Occasionally it will be a scientist, who…
Geoff discusses statistics, confidence intervals, Bayesian approaches, meta-analysis, and problems with the use of ‘P’ values in significance testing. Discussion points: – Describe your background and involvement in statistics. – How have orthodox statistics helped psychology (& science)? How has it harmed the science? – What methods, models and tools do you commonly use in…
