Consciousness

I’ve been working on what we commonly call “diversity” in cultural terms for decades. I co-founded the Diversity Center of Queens and published DiverCity newspaper and magazine in Jackson Heights—widely recognized as one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the United States.…

A metaphysical exercise with an artificial intelligence SEED QUESTIONS: THE ORIGIN OF THE DIALOGUE This essay was born from a series of questions I asked my artificial intelligence. They weren’t complex questions. There was no context, no theory, no framework.…

The mainstream media seems to be waiting for a clash between Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and U.S. President Donald Trump. Both figures embody starkly different visions of the present moment. Sheinbaum, Mexico’s first woman president and a self-described humanist, enjoys…

Mr. Musk many times you have expressed concerns about the future of human consciousness. You said that humanity needs to get to Mars in order to preserve human consciousness. In the meantime, I believe that here on earth human consciousness…

The broad consensus is that many species are sentient. By Marjorie Hecht Humans have had relationships with their pets for thousands of years, talking to them, coddling them, and imbuing them with human attributes. But are these animals “thinking,” and…

It is the time of year when we have the opportunity to reflect on the previous year and make resolutions for the future. The dehumanization process has reached new levels in 2023. The current destruction of Palestinian society by Israel…

It was a long time ago. I still have the sense of wonder [that I felt] when a sensational news story wafted through the media press: “The Earth is alive.” Or, “Our Earth, a living thing.” It was as if…

If there is a purpose of human life, as near as I can tell from these severely limited sense organs and this very limited brain, it’s to become as conscious as possible. If you were given a video game to…

What can help in these uncertain times, when everything around us seems to waver, half-truths mix with apparent lies, structures decay, boundaries blur? What can and should one still believe? The answer is certainly not to be found outside, but…

At the present moment, AI researchers are studying new form and architecture to develop the future AI. Today the main approaches and form are symbolic (based on representations of problems, logic and search) Bayesian networks (probabilistic model) and deep learning.…