MachineMachine /stream - tagged with mind https://machinemachine.net/stream/feed en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss LifePress therourke@gmail.com <![CDATA[What happens in your mind when you read this paragraph?]]> http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/387587

When I read the very 1st paragraph of this article, I had a series of mini revelations about how my mind works, and perhaps the minds of others. I'd appreciate it if you read it first (just the 1st paragraph), and then came back here to explore with me why I think it was interesting... Thanks for coming back!

So, my question is slightly loaded, because I have what is called 'aphantasia', and reading this paragraph made me wonder whether the way non-aphants think (around 96% of the population) was fairly represented by this writer.

When you pictured the scene, how specific was it? Did the follow-up descriptions the writer gives fairly mirror your own experience?

Because when I read it, I didn't get a visual 'picture' in my head, (there is nothing visual in my head, because I am an aphant) but I did imagine the scene conceptually. The thing is, for me the scene I imagined was absolutely abstracted. It was the idea of a person washing hands at a sink. There was little to no specificity. There was no bathroom or kitchen, circular or square sink in my inner imagination. There was no specific person, man or woman, black or white, no specific way their hands moved, no specific relationship between the redness of the liquid, and what it might be (i.e. blood or paint). I just imagined an abstracted set of related ideas: person, washing hands, sink, red. That was it.

So when the writer goes on to then assume everyone pictured something really specific, that made me wonder: is the abstractness of aphantasic thinking universal? Do aphants always imagine in a kind of realm of Platonic ideals? Do none aphants always picture specific things? How much of the writer's assumption here is fair, given that we ALL sit on the spectrum of mental visual imagination? What are the social implications of these different ways of thinking?

What happened in your mind when you read this paragraph? I am intrigued to know, and where you usually sit on the spectrum of visual imagination.

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Sun, 12 Oct 2025 07:01:27 -0700 http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/387587
<![CDATA[How Should We Think About Our Different Styles of Thinking? | The New Yorker]]> https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/01/16/how-should-we-think-about-our-different-styles-of-thinking

I was nineteen, maybe twenty, when I realized I was empty-headed. I was in a college English class, and we were in a sunny seminar room, discussing “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” or possibly “The Waves.

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Fri, 02 Aug 2024 13:07:38 -0700 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/01/16/how-should-we-think-about-our-different-styles-of-thinking
<![CDATA[The Communal Mind · LRB 21 February 2019]]> https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v41/n04/patricia-lockwood/the-communal-mind

Afew​ years ago, when it suddenly occurred to us that the internet was a place we could never leave, I began to keep a diary of what it felt like to be there in the days of its snowy white disintegration, which felt also like the disintegration of my own mind. My interest was not academic.

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Mon, 06 Jan 2020 19:34:09 -0800 https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v41/n04/patricia-lockwood/the-communal-mind
<![CDATA[Computers Evolve a New Path Toward Human Intelligence]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/computers-evolve-a-new-path-toward-human-intelligence-20191106/

In 2007, Kenneth Stanley, a computer scientist at the University of Central Florida, was playing with Picbreeder, a website he and his students had created, when an alien became a race car and changed his life.

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Sat, 09 Nov 2019 10:51:26 -0800 https://www.quantamagazine.org/computers-evolve-a-new-path-toward-human-intelligence-20191106/
<![CDATA[Opinion | Good for Google, Bad for America - The New York Times]]> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/01/opinion/peter-thiel-google.html

At its core, artificial intelligence is a military technology. Why is the company sharing it with a rival? Mr. Thiel is an entrepreneur and investor.

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Wed, 21 Aug 2019 04:08:54 -0700 https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/01/opinion/peter-thiel-google.html
<![CDATA[Yes, the Octopus Is Smart as Heck. But Why? - The New York Times]]> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/30/science/animal-intelligence-octopus-cephalopods.html

It has eight arms, three hearts — and a plan. Scientists aren’t sure how the cephalopods got to be so intelligent. To demonstrate how smart an octopus can be, Piero Amodio points to a YouTube video. It shows an octopus pulling two halves of a coconut shell together to hide inside.

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Thu, 07 Feb 2019 05:01:03 -0800 https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/30/science/animal-intelligence-octopus-cephalopods.html
<![CDATA[Consciousness Began When the Gods Stopped Speaking: Julian Jaynes’ Famous 1970s Theory]]> http://nautil.us/issue/54/the-unspoken/consciousness-began-when-the-gods-stopped-speaking-rp

Julian Jaynes was living out of a couple of suitcases in a Princeton dorm in the early 1970s. He must have been an odd sight there among the undergraduates, some of whom knew him as a lecturer who taught psychology, holding forth in a deep baritone voice.

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Sun, 26 Nov 2017 10:30:42 -0800 http://nautil.us/issue/54/the-unspoken/consciousness-began-when-the-gods-stopped-speaking-rp
<![CDATA[Orion Magazine | Deep Intellect]]> https://orionmagazine.org/article/deep-intellect/

ON AN UNSEASONABLY WARM day in the middle of March, I traveled from New Hampshire to the moist, dim sanctuary of the New England Aquarium, hoping to touch an alternate reality. I came to meet Athena, the aquarium’s forty-pound, five-foot-long, two-and-a-half-year-old giant Pacific octopus.

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Sun, 26 Nov 2017 07:31:04 -0800 https://orionmagazine.org/article/deep-intellect/
<![CDATA[Orion Magazine | Deep Intellect]]> https://orionmagazine.org/article/deep-intellect/

ON AN UNSEASONABLY WARM day in the middle of March, I traveled from New Hampshire to the moist, dim sanctuary of the New England Aquarium, hoping to touch an alternate reality. I came to meet Athena, the aquarium’s forty-pound, five-foot-long, two-and-a-half-year-old giant Pacific octopus.

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Mon, 20 Nov 2017 09:51:04 -0800 https://orionmagazine.org/article/deep-intellect/
<![CDATA[The Thoughts of a Spiderweb | Quanta Magazine]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-thoughts-of-a-spiderweb-20170523/

Millions of years ago, a few spiders abandoned the kind of round webs that the word “spiderweb” calls to mind and started to focus on a new strategy. Before, they would wait for prey to become ensnared in their webs and then walk out to retrieve it.

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Wed, 06 Sep 2017 03:24:19 -0700 https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-thoughts-of-a-spiderweb-20170523/
<![CDATA[Amia Srinivasan reviews ‘Other Minds’ by Peter Godfrey-Smith and ‘The Soul of an Octopus’ by Sy Montgomery · LRB 7 September 2017]]> https://www.lrb.co.uk/v39/n17/amia-srinivasan/the-sucker-the-sucker

In 1815, 15 years before he made his most famous print, The Great Wave, Hokusai published three volumes of erotic art. In one of them there is a woodcut print known in English as ‘The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife’ and in Japanese as ‘Tako to ama’, ‘Octopus and Shell Diver’.

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Wed, 06 Sep 2017 03:24:11 -0700 https://www.lrb.co.uk/v39/n17/amia-srinivasan/the-sucker-the-sucker
<![CDATA[Ghost in the Cloud | Issue 28 | n+1]]> https://nplusonemag.com/issue-28/essays/ghost-in-the-cloud/

“ Ido plan to bring back my father,” Ray Kurzweil says. He is standing in the anemic light of a storage unit, his frame dwarfed by towers of cardboard boxes and oblong plastic bins. He wears tinted eyeglasses.

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Tue, 25 Apr 2017 08:01:30 -0700 https://nplusonemag.com/issue-28/essays/ghost-in-the-cloud/
<![CDATA[Now it’s time to prepare for the Machinocene | Aeon Ideas]]> https://aeon.co/ideas/now-it-s-time-to-prepare-for-the-machinocene

Human-level intelligence is familiar in biological hardware – you’re using it now. Science and technology seem to be converging, from several directions, on the possibility of similar intelligence in non-biological systems.

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Thu, 27 Oct 2016 12:48:11 -0700 https://aeon.co/ideas/now-it-s-time-to-prepare-for-the-machinocene
<![CDATA[Towards a statistical mechanics of consciousness: maximization of number of connections is associated with conscious awareness]]> https://arxiv.org/abs/1606.00821

Authors: R. Guevara Erra, D. M. Mateos, R. Wennberg, J.L. Perez Velazquez Abstract: It has been said that complexity lies between order and disorder. In the case of brain activity, and physiology in general, complexity issues are being considered with increased emphasis.

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Sun, 23 Oct 2016 04:56:19 -0700 https://arxiv.org/abs/1606.00821
<![CDATA[Beyond humans, what other kinds of minds might be out there? | Aeon Essays]]> https://aeon.co/essays/beyond-humans-what-other-kinds-of-minds-might-be-out-there

In 1984, the philosopher Aaron Sloman invited scholars to describe ‘the space of possible minds’. Sloman’s phrase alludes to the fact that human minds, in all their variety, are not the only sorts of minds.

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Thu, 20 Oct 2016 03:05:12 -0700 https://aeon.co/essays/beyond-humans-what-other-kinds-of-minds-might-be-out-there
<![CDATA[Consciousness Began When the Gods Stopped Speaking - Issue 24: Error - Nautilus]]> http://m.nautil.us/issue/24/error/consciousness-began-when-the-gods-stopped-speaking

Julian Jaynes was living out of a couple of suitcases in a Princeton dorm in the early 1970s. He must have been an odd sight there among the undergraduates, some of whom knew him as a lecturer who taught psychology, holding forth in a deep baritone voice.

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Sun, 31 May 2015 05:38:43 -0700 http://m.nautil.us/issue/24/error/consciousness-began-when-the-gods-stopped-speaking
<![CDATA[Why we should not fear AI. Yet (Wired UK)]]> http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-05/08/nigel-shadbolt-on-the-inevitable-robot-uprising

Nigel Shadbolt, professor of artificial intelligence at the University of Southampton and cofounder of the Open Data Institute, will be debating the future of AI on 24 May at HowTheLightGetsIn, a philosophy and music festival. WIRED is a festival media partner.

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Thu, 14 May 2015 17:43:39 -0700 http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-05/08/nigel-shadbolt-on-the-inevitable-robot-uprising
<![CDATA[Turing Test success marks milestone in computing history]]> http://www.reading.ac.uk/news-and-events/releases/PR583836.aspx

An historic milestone in artificial intelligence set by Alan Turing - the father of modern computer science - has been achieved at an event organised by the University of Reading.

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Wed, 29 Apr 2015 16:19:44 -0700 http://www.reading.ac.uk/news-and-events/releases/PR583836.aspx
<![CDATA[Phys.Org Mobile: Bee brain simulation used to pilot a drone]]> http://m.phys.org/news/2015-04-bee-brain-simulation-drone.html

Bee brain simulation used to pilot a drone Apr 14, Technology/Hi Tech & Innovation Full size image Credit: Green Brain Project The team of researchers working on the The Green Brain Project has advanced to the point of being able to use what they've created in mimicking a honeybee brain, to actua

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Thu, 23 Apr 2015 00:26:46 -0700 http://m.phys.org/news/2015-04-bee-brain-simulation-drone.html
<![CDATA[Ritual and the Consciousness Monoculture]]> http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2015/01/08/ritual-and-the-consciousness-monoculture/

Sarah Perry is a guest blogger who blogs at Carcinisation and is the author of Every Cradle is a Grave: Rethinking the Ethics of Birth and Suicide.

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Sat, 24 Jan 2015 06:50:45 -0800 http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2015/01/08/ritual-and-the-consciousness-monoculture/