Various web links I found to be of interest recently.
The Trump administration's pivot toward socialism did not come without warning.
Trump would not be the first leader to believe that greater state control
of key industries and economic sectors would translate into better growth
and stronger security. But from Soviet Russia to modern China, the best
parallels come from authoritarian regimes rather than American
presidencies. Resisting that temptation has historically worked out pretty
well for the United States.
...
"If socialism is government owning the means of production," said
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) not long after the Intel deal was announced,
"wouldn't the government owning part of Intel be a step toward socialism?"
The American research enterprise, long the global leader, faces intensifying competition and mounting criticism regarding its productivity and relevance to societal challenges. At the same time, a vital component of a healthy research enterprise has been lost: corporate research labs, epitomized by the iconic Bell Labs of the 20th century. Such labs uniquely excelled at reverse translational research, where real-world utility and problem-rich environments served as powerful inspirations for fundamental learning and discovery. Rebuilding such labs in a 21st century "Bell Labs X" form would restore a powerful and uniquely American approach to technoscientific discovery-harnessing the private sector to discover and invent in ways that fundamentally improve U.S. national and economic competitiveness. Moreover, new metaresearch insights into "how to innovate how we innovate" provide principles that can guide their rebuilding. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) can help turn these insights into reality by convening a working group of stakeholders (philanthropy, business, and science agency leaders), alongside policy and metascience scholars, to make practical recommendations for implementation.
Summary: A new theoretical framework argues that the long-standing split between computational functionalism and biological naturalism misses how real brains actually compute.
The authors propose “biological computationalism,” the idea that neural computation is inseparable from the brain’s physical, hybrid, and energy-constrained dynamics rather than an abstract algorithm running on hardware. In this view, discrete neural events and continuous physical processes form a tightly coupled system that cannot be reduced to symbolic information processing.
The theory suggests that digital AI, despite its capabilities, may not recreate the essential computational style that gives rise to conscious experience. Instead, truly mind-like cognition may require building systems whose computation emerges from physical dynamics similar to those found in biological brains.
Key Facts:
Today's tech "prophets" push a narrative that God-like artificial superintelligence is inevitable, and only they can ensure humanity's safety from their creations.
This narrative has very little to do with any scientific consensus, emerging instead from particular corridors of power. The loudest prophets of superintelligence are those building the very systems they warn against. When Sam Altman speaks of artificial general intelligence's existential risk to humanity while simultaneously racing to create it, or when Elon Musk warns of an AI apocalypse while founding companies to accelerate its development, we're seeing politics masked as predictions.
Radiology combines digital images, clear benchmarks, and repeatable tasks. But demand for human radiologists is at an all-time high.
Three things explain this. First, while models beat humans on benchmarks, the standardized tests designed to measure AI performance, they struggle to replicate this performance in hospital conditions. Most tools can only diagnose abnormalities that are common in training data, and models often don't work as well outside of their test conditions. Second, attempts to give models more tasks have run into legal hurdles: regulators and medical insurers so far are reluctant to approve or cover fully autonomous radiology models. Third, even when they do diagnose accurately, models replace only a small share of a radiologist's job. Human radiologists spend a minority of their time on diagnostics and the majority on other activities, like talking to patients and fellow clinicians.
A foundational 1956 study of the concept, focussed on a U.F.O. doomsday cult, has been all but debunked by new research.
Festinger was developing the now ubiquitous theory of cognitive
dissonance. He argued that, when people encounter contradictions,
they experience so much discomfort that they feel an urgent need to
reduce it. In response, a person can update his views-or he can
misinterpret, and even reject, whatever information has challenged
his beliefs. He might seek out people who agree with him; he might
try to persuade those who don't. "A man with a conviction
is a hard man to change," Festinger later wrote. "Tell him
you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he
questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your
point." Cognitive dissonance helped explain human choices that
otherwise seemed irrational, stubborn, and shortsighted: these were,
in fact, attempts to reduce psychological distress.
...
Lately, though, the foundational case study of the Seekers has
been contending with its own kind of dissonance. Until this year,
a box of Festinger's documents-communications with colleagues,
research notes, transcribed telephone conversations-in his archives
at the Bentley Historical Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan, remained
sealed at the request of his widow, Trudy. When the files were
released, a political scientist named Thomas Kelly discovered that
the researchers, who were ostensibly neutral observers, actually
wielded a profound level of influence over the Seekers.
Original article: Debunking "When Prophecy Fails"
The scientist was famous for linking healing with storytelling. Sometimes that meant reshaping patients' reality.
Weschler told me that Sacks used to express anxiety about whether he'd distorted the truth. Weschler would assure him that good writing is not a strict account of reality; there has to be space for the writer's imagination. He said he told Sacks, "Come on, you're extravagantly romanticizing how bad you are-just as much as you were extravagantly romanticizing what the patient said. Your mother's accusing voice has taken over." Weschler had gone to Beth Abraham Hospital to meet some of the patients from "Awakenings" and had been shaken by their condition. "There's a lot of people shitting in their pants, drooling-the sedimentation of thirty years living in a warehouse," he said. "His genius was to see past that, to the dignity of the person. He would talk to them for an hour, and maybe their eyes would brighten only once-the rest of the time their eyes were cloudy-but he would glom onto that and keep talking."
A healthy diet outperforms fecal transplants in restoring and protecting the gut microbiome, according to new research published in Nature by the Simons Foundation's Joy Bergelson and collaborators at the University of Chicago. The results have implications for treating gastrointestinal conditions and optimizing recovery after antibiotics.
Pumpkin seeds are highly nutritious and may be associated with health benefits, including improved fertility, better heart health, and enhanced blood sugar control.
VR Ping Pong for Hours
Eleven Table Tennis has been described as "The Ultimate Table Tennis Simulator." Pick up your ping pong ball and racket and start hitting some balls with your friends or against a computer.
Eleven Table Tennis is available on Steam VR, Oculus Rift, and Oculus Quest.