Hacking the Operating System vs. Colonizing Human Agency A Comparative Critique: Yuval Noah Harari and David Boulton Context: Harari’s The Next 50 Years: Humanity, AI, Power vs. The Learning Dynamic Framework In his thesis across recent lectures and his book Nexus, Yuval Noah Harari argues that human civilization is an operating system woven out of
Critiquing Yuval Noah Harari on AI Read More »
Consciousness · Learning · A dialogue Can Science Explain Consciousness? Deepak Chopra’s essay followed by an 18-part Boulton on Learning response On this page Summary of Chopra’s essay · My response · Response section index Part I · Why There Can Be No Scientific Theory of Consciousness Before every thought, theory, and measurement, there is
Can Science Explain Consciousness? Read More »
Paradigm Inertia Paradigm Inertia is the systemic, psychological, and institutional resistance to updating, revising, or replacing an established mental model, operational framework, or scientific consensus—even when confronted with empirical anomalies, falsifying data, or demonstrable systemic failure. It represents the tendency of epistemic systems (individual minds, academic disciplines, regulatory agencies, and professional cultures) to maintain their
Two very different minds. Silvan Tomkins (1911-1991) is considered by many to be the Einstein of emotional science. His theory of emotion defines a core set of indivisible neurobiological elements – “affects” -whose innate and learning conscripted behaviors aggregate to explain the entire universe of human emotion. John Steinbeck (1902-1968) also viewed humans through a
John Steinbeck & Silvan Tomkins – What A Shame! Read More »
This is a podcast conducted by Jesica Glover as a stand alone episode in “My Child Can’t Read: A Heartland Crisis”. The podcast was as recorded on 5-12-26 and was produced on behalf of the Phillips Fundamental Learning Center. The above video is the raw interview. The interview was edited and released as a
The Crisis Beneath the Literacy Crisis Read More »
Part I: The Take-Off Ramp — Evolution Beyond Raw Encephalization A prevalent misconception in evolutionary biology suggests that human cognitive superiority stems directly from brain expansion—simply scaling an ancestral ape brain from roughly 350–450 cm³ (and ~6–9 billion cortical neurons) up to 1350–1400 cm³ (and ~16–21 billion cortical neurons). Yet an isometric scaling of that
Apes to AIs: The Illusion of Scaling Up Sentience Read More »
If you haven’t seen the latest NetFlix release: AI GONE WILD I recommend it. It’s a great backdrop for understanding the misleading ways the media is helping to perpetuate the wrong set of fears. Click here for a detailed take on the Hugging Face example Like the documentary points out, every few weeks (becoming days),
The ongoing debate over whether artificial intelligence will become a conscious, autonomous agent has trapped itself between two dogmas of unexamined certainty. On one side stand those who declare machine self-agency an absolute inevitability: “Advanced AI will inevitably develop into an autonomous, self-interested entity that breaks free from human control, pursuing its own survival and
to be or not to be? Read More »
I fed the transcript of the following video of my talk to the Tomkins organization to an AI proxy of Silvan Tomkins and instructed it: Filter out everything not related to affect theory. Distill the affect-order distinctions being made. Point by point, use Tomkins to comment on them. A page of background and further
What Silvan Tomkins Might Say: My Tomkins Talk Read More »
“I visualize a time when we will be to robots what dogs are to humans.” – Claude Shannon 1987 The Hierarchy of AI Risk The public debate over the existential risk of artificial intelligence is paralyzed by deceptive illusions. The scenarios commanding the most headlines and panic are the most speculative and sensational, while the
Don’t Let the Wizards of Iz Distract You Read More »