Issues
Issue 155: April/May 2023
EDITORIAL
Mind and Artificial Intelligence: A Dialogue
by Rick Lewis
NEWS
News: April/May 2023
Computer made of mouse brain cells • Microsoft disbands AI ethics team • RIP Ernst Tugendhat — News reports by Anja Steinbauer
AI & MIND
What it Means to be Human: Blade Runner 2049
Kilian Pötter introduces the big ideas and problems around artificial consciousness.
AI & Human Interaction
Miriam Gorr asks what we learn from current claims for cyberconsciousness.
Arguing with the Chinese Room
Michael DeBellis says Searle’s famous argument about computers not having understanding does not compute.
What’s Stopping Us Achieving Artificial General Intelligence?
A. Efimov, D. Dubrovsky, and F. Matveev explore how the development of AI is limited by the perceived need to understand language and be embodied.
Can Machines Be Conscious?
Sebastian Sunday Grève and Yu Xiaoyue find an unexpected way in which the answer is ‘yes’.
DESCARTES
Ergoing Nowhere
Noah Harris says Descartes failed to find absolute foundations for knowledge.
Descartes & Stupidity
Trevor Pateman asks: stupidity – essence, or accident?
How Descartes Inspired Science
Kanan Purkayastha has both general and special theories about how the master rationalist inspired modern empirical science.
ARTICLES
Hap & Happiness
Stephen Anderson meditates on misfortune and meaning.
Hannah Arendt: On the Spectre of Nuclear War
Maurits de Jongh finds our contemporary situation reflected in earlier states.
The Urgency of Art
Sam McAuliffe thinks that art offers another way of thinking.
Interview with a Chatbot
The full text of our brief interview with OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot.
Chamfort (1740-1794)
Martin Jenkins looks at the life of a wry observer of society, cut short by that society’s revolutionary turmoil.
What Is Time?
Each answer below receives a book. Apologies to the many entrants not included.
LETTERS
Letters
Logic & Fallacies • Off the Rails Again • Theodicy Continues • Rolling Back the Digital Tide • Knowing Foucault Himself • Rubbishing Rubbish • Cicero Civilises Characteristically • Pluralism vs French Universalism
COLUMNS
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881)
by Terence Green
Philosophers on Beer
by Matt Qvortrup
Reflections on Taking My Blood Pressure
Raymond Tallis finds himself within himself.
How To Live A Happy Life, With Seneca
Massimo Pigliucci shares some Stoic standards.
REVIEWS
We Have Always Been Cyborgs by Stefan Lorenz Sorgner
Natasha Beranek sees transhumanism get an upgrade.
In Praise of Failure by Costica Bradatan
Paul J. D’Ambrosio looks at the sorts of successes to which failure can lead.
Ghostbusters
Thomas R. Morgan ponders the phantom pain and pleasure perspective.
CARTOONS
Simon & Finn
by Melissa Felder
Steve Delmonte’s Cartoon (1)
by Steve Delmonte
Guto Dias’ Cartoon
by Guto Dias
Steve Delmonte’s Cartoon (2)
by Steve Delmonte
FICTION
Typing to Turing
by Samantha Neave
Spinoza’s Godly Mystery
by Sivanth Adithya.N
The Last Thought
Everything must end eventually, even consciousness. A short story by Grant Bartley.