Scientists and engineers around the world are, with varying degrees of success, racing to replicate biology and intelligence in computers. Computational biology is already simulating the nervous systems of entire organisms. Artificial intelligence seems to be able to replicate more tasks formerly thought to be the sole preserve of man each year. Many of the results […]
Works of art, including film, painting, sculpture, literature and poetry, have a seemingly inexhaustible quality. As we keep confronting them, renewing our relationship with them over time, we continually extract more meaning from them. Some works truly appear to be bottomless. Reaching the bottom easily is, of course, a sure sign that a work will not […]
Scientific method is fundamentally concerned with repeatable events. The phenomena that science captures most easily may be described using the following formula: once conditions A have been established, if B is done, then C happens. This kind of science is a science of reactions, of the reactive. But what about a science of the active? Is […]
Pjotr Prins has published a Small Tools Manifesto for Bioinformatics, which is well worth a read for anyone who develops bioinformatics software. In essence it’s about increased adoption of the Unix design philosophy. I fully support the manifesto, which in many ways is reminiscent of the ideas that me and Gabriel Keeble-Gagnere presented in our […]
It is first with delight and then with a growing feeling of sadness that I read Luke Muelhauser’s interview with the computer scientist Scott Aaronson at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute. As a computer scientist, Aaronson has contributed much to our understanding of complexity theory and other areas. He has even written popular science books […]
¶
Posted 27 December 2013
† Johan
§
Philosophy
‡
°
Tagged: academia, anglo-saxon, art, continental/analytical, heidegger, interpretation, logic, nietzsche, poetry, prose, utilitarianism