A 25-Year-Old Bet about Consciousness Has Finally Been Settled
A brain scientist and a philosopher have resolved a wager on consciousness that was made when Bill Clinton was president
John Horgan, who has written for Scientific American since 1986, comments on science on his free online journal Cross-Check. He has also posted his books Mind-Body Problems and My Quantum Experiment online. Horgan teaches at Stevens Institute of Technology.
A brain scientist and a philosopher have resolved a wager on consciousness that was made when Bill Clinton was president
Scientists search for hidden variables underpinning our swerving moods and thoughts
Quantum entanglement seems like it shouldn’t be possible, but experiments from 2022 Nobel Prize winners based on John Bell’s work tell us otherwise
A moral movement called longtermism, which focuses on protecting humanity’s future, dwells too much on artificial intelligence and not enough on war
A “replication crisis” in mathematics raises questions about the purpose of knowledge
The psychiatric syndrome called derealization raises profound moral and philosophical questions
As the war in Ukraine intensifies, rather than prepare for future wars, we should talk about ending war once and for all
Superdeterminism, a radical quantum hypothesis, says our “choices” are illusory
A radical retelling of civilization’s origins leads to an expansive vision of human possibility
A radical quantum hypothesis casts doubt on objective reality
Prominent scientists exaggerate the violence of Native Americans, whom European invaders ravaged
Tech companies seek to create far more immersive digital environments, possibly mediated by brain implants
Bills totaling $287,365.08 provide insights into the dysfunctional economics of American medicine
Wearable devices that track our health may do more harm than good
Fear of mortality might underlie physicists’ fondness for the anthropic principle, multiverses, superdeterminism and other shaky ideas
Quantum mechanics inspires us to speculate that interactions between entities, not entities in themselves, are fundamental to reality
Ordinary human dilemmas are tougher to solve than the most difficult problems of physics and mathematics
Theories that try to explain these big metaphysical mysteries fall short, making agnosticism the only sensible stance
A 92-year-old essay provokes musings on the nature of knowledge, reality—and uptalk
Can we ever really know the world?
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