Deric Bownds

LATEST ARTICLES ( 2628 )

• MindBlog's Seduction by AI

  I decided to drink the kool aid, go down the rabbit hole, of learning more about AI, and have ceased regular MindBlog posts. As I have been reading numerous... Read more

  Posted on 28 March 2023 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Is the Hype Over A.I. Justified? Does It Really Change Everything?

  I know, I know…. We’re all tired of the hysteria resulting from the sudden appearance of ChatGPT-like programs that feel to us as though they are intelligent an... Read more

  Posted on 17 March 2023 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• To the Mountains - an Analysis of China's Current State

  To any any MindBlog readers who might be China buffs I highly recommed reading Dan Wang's 2022 letter on China's current and future prospects. Here is a clip... Read more

  Posted on 15 March 2023 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Blood-derived Signals as Potent Drivers of Both Age-related Brain Dysfunction an...

  An open source review from Bieri et al. has some nice graphics and tables summarizing the varieties of pro-aging and rejuvenating interventions. Here is their... Read more

  Posted on 13 March 2023 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• An Arthritis Drug Mimicks the Anti-aging Benefits of Youthful Blood Transfusions

  Some edited clips from the New Atlas description of research by Passegué and collaborators on rejuvenating the stem cells located in the blood marrow that... Read more

  Posted on 10 March 2023 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• A Skeptical Take on the AI Revolution

  I want to pass on to MindBlog readers some clips I have made for my own use from the transcript of a podcast interview of Gary Marcus by Ezra Klein. Read more

  Posted on 08 March 2023 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• MindBlog as a Portal to Open AI's ChatGPT? A Few Stumbles on the Way...

  

  After my initial foray into playing with OpenAI's ChatGPT last December I decided to return for another chat today, and was initially blown away by the results. Read more

  Posted on 06 March 2023 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Empathy Lost and Regained in a Mouse Model of Dementia

  A PNAS Journal Club article by Carolyn Beans points to work by Yao and colleagues that shows that a loss of empathy that is especially problematic for those... Read more

  Posted on 03 March 2023 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Artificial Intelligence and Personhood

  MindBlog hesitates to add to the feeding frenzy of articles about LLMs (large language models) such as Open AI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft Bing’s “Sydney,” but I... Read more

  Posted on 01 March 2023 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Possible Mechanism of Psychedelic Therapeutic Effects

  From the latest issue of Science Magazine: The mechanism underlying psychedelic action Psychedelic compounds promote cortical structural and functional... Read more

  Posted on 27 February 2023 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• MindBlog Picks Some of Its Favorite Posts on Defining What a Self Is…

  The following links are from a recent scan of what pops up if I click on items in ‘Selected MindBlog Categories’ in the right column of this page - to remind... Read more

  Posted on 24 February 2023 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• A Fish Passes the Mirror Self Recognition Test!

  Our human abilities continue to found in more evolutionarily distant species. From Kohda et al.: Some animals have the remarkable capacity for mirror... Read more

  Posted on 22 February 2023 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Fundamentally Rethinking What a Mind is and How a Brain Works.

  

  The February Issue of Trends in Cognitive Science has an open source Opinions article from Lisa Feldman Barrett and collaborators that suggests that new researc... Read more

  Posted on 20 February 2023 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Touch Sensitive Nerve Cells That Make Mice (and Probably Us) Horny.

  From Elias et al. (open source) in the journal Cell: Highlights • Activation of Mrgprb4-lineage touch neurons induces lordosis-like posture •... Read more

  Posted on 17 February 2023 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• A.I. as a Path Towards Mass Lunacy

  MindBlog wants to be part of the passing on of this elegantly stated clip from an article by novelist, literary critic, and essayist Walter Kirn: What chatbots... Read more

  Posted on 15 February 2023 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• An fMRI Marker of Drug and Food Craving

  Koban et al. identify an fMRI-based neural signature of craving that is common to both food and drugs, predicts self-reported craving, distinguishes drug users... Read more

  Posted on 13 February 2023 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Multigenerational Impacts of Childhood Access to the Safety Net.

  In an open source article in the January issue of the American Economic Review East et al. show that early life exposure to Medicaid enhances the next... Read more

  Posted on 10 February 2023 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Shifting from Foraging to Farming, Beginning ~12,000 Years Ago, Changed...

  A special Feature section in the Jan. 17 issue of PNAS offers a series of perspectives on the past 12,000 years of human behavior, adaptation, and evolution tha... Read more

  Posted on 08 February 2023 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Openness to Spiritual Experiences...with Caution

  After a Protestant Christian upbringing (I was a teenage organist in an Austin Lutheran Church, and took a course from theologian Paul Tillich at Harvard), my... Read more

  Posted on 06 February 2023 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Cryptocurrency Isn't Going Away - Any More That Gold Is...

  ...as long as cryptocurrency maintains a core of true believers in the block chain concept for guaranteeing trustworthiness. All currencies are useful as... Read more

  Posted on 03 February 2023 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE