Tag Archives: Mind

Grabbing the Tiger by The Tail: Holding On For Dear Life to The Part of Myself that AI Will Never Replace

AI uses expansive memory to make accurate predictions of the next word in a series of words. Memory and talking are fundamental to being human, and we fear that AI will replace them. But because memory and talking have built-in limits, human life extends beyond them to a part of ourselves that AI cannot replace. We have called this our “higher” or “true” self, but it is simply the part of ourselves outside of memory. AI challenges us to fully embrace this part of ourselves, since we’re in the process of turning over our talking- and memory-selves to the machines.

What’s it like being a raven or a crow?

Walter Veit is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Philosophy at the University of Reading, where I am also the director of the PPE program as well as the philosophy MA program.
“Furthermore, I am an external member of the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. My interests are broad, but I work primarily in and at the intersections of (i) the Philosophy of Cognitive and Biological Sciences, (ii) the Philosophy of Mind, and (iii) Applied Ethics. Much of my recent writing has been on animal minds, welfare, and ethics, as well as evolution. My first monograph titled ‘A Philosophy for the Science of Animal Consciousness‘ integrating this research into a coherent whole has been published with Routledge. I received my PhD in 2023 from the School of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Sydney. I also spent time during my PhD as a visiting student at the London School of Economics and Political Science, the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, the University of Cambridge, and the University of Oxford, before I moved on to a post-doctoral position at the University of Bristol.”

Heather Browning is a Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Southampton.
“My primary research interests are animal welfare, ethics, and consciousness. I completed my PhD at the Australian National University, with a thesis on the measurement of animal welfare.
I have previously worked as a researcher in animal sentience and welfare at the London School of Economics, as part of the Foundations of Animal Sentience project. I was part of the research team who produced a report for DEFRA reviewing the evidence of sentience in cephalopod molluscs and decapod crustaceans, leading to an amendment of the UK’s Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act to include their protection.
I also worked for many years as a zookeeper and zoo animal welfare officer, interested in the practical application of animal welfare measurement.”

Collaboratively imagining the future can bring people closer together in the present

Zoë Fowler is a graduate student at the State University of New York, Albany in the Gaesser Lab.
“I am broadly interested in the intersection of social cognition, morality, and memory and imagination. My specific interests include empathy and its influence on morality as well as the role of imagination in the formation and maintenance of social bonds. Prior to SUNY Albany, I attended Emory University where I began as an undergraduate research assistant at Yerkes National Primate Research Center.”

Brendan Bo O’Connor (Bren) is a cognitive scientist, scholar of imagination, and outsider artist. As an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at the University at Albany he directs the Imagination & Cognition Lab, using psychology, philosophy, and neuroscience to explore the relationship between imagination, empathy, altruism, and morality. As an artist, he is the creator and director of the Lucid Dream Minigolf project, an existential traveling minigolf course funded by the Alliance of Resident Theatres New York and New York State Council on the Arts. Before UAlbany, he was a postdoctoral researcher at Boston College. He received his B.A. from Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts and his Ph.D. from Harvard University.

A Psychedelic Mind: Metaphysics and Psychiatry

This article examines whether “mind altering” substances transcend the experiences of consciousness or are they mere chemicals that release or inhibit the flow of neurotransmitters in the brain. The central question would be to investigate the metaphysical nature of mind-altering substances and whether they truly are ‘revelations’ transcending the crisis of existence or whether they prevent us from seeing our normal reality and thus are a delusional escape. The phenomenological account of a drug induced substance would allow for the transcendental or ‘higher’ self-consciousness felt during such an experience to be real and the research on the use of psychedelic substances in psychiatric therapy might prove drugs to be a novel means of discovering the metaphysical and neurological realities of consciousness. Thus, my aim is to study if psychedelics help us reach the limits of our experience in time and space and enter into the mystical and metaphysical realms of the nature of the ‘self’, its consciousness, realism/ anti realism of its existence and the world experienced by it.

My Hands, The Machine’s Mind: Giving Up Artistic Agency

Kayla Block is a mixed media artist and creative technologist whose work lives at the intersection of memory, machine, and material.

“This project explores a human-AI art collaboration in which the artist relinquished creative agency to ChatGPT, following its instructions to create a mixed-media piece. Rather than functioning as a passive assistant, the AI was prompted to issue direct, uncompromising commands. The resulting work revealed both the strengths and limitations of a language model directing visual composition. While ChatGPT declared the piece complete, the artist perceived unresolved tensions. The project raises questions about authorship, aesthetic judgment, and the nature of creativity when one mind is human and the other computational, offering a reflective case study in co-creation across species of intelligence.”

The Inward Spiral of Time: Remembering Ourselves Back to the Source

This article by Dr. Domenico Meschino was written in collaboration with Omni Intelligence AI, a next-generation cognitive model for scientific reflection and research.
“In this piece, we present a groundbreaking model that challenges the traditional view of time as linear. Drawing from patterns observed in physics, biology, and cosmology — alongside recent advancements in nonlinear theories — the article argues that time operates as an inward spiral, not a straight arrow.
This model aligns with emerging discoveries in relativity, quantum entanglement, and dynamic systems theory, suggesting a fundamental rethinking of scientific paradigms across physics, psychology, and consciousness studies.”

On ‘The Creative Brain’

Anna Abraham is the E. Paul Torrance Professor and Director of the Torrance Center for Creativity and Talent Development at the University of Georgia. She is the author of ‘The Neuroscience of Creativity’ and the editor of the multidisciplinary volume ‘The Cambridge Handbook of the Imagination’. In this interview she discusses her latest book, ‘The Creative Brain: Myths and Truths’, which draws on theoretical and empirical work in cognitive psychology and neuroscience, and offers an examination of human creativity that reveals the true complexity underlying our conventional beliefs about the brain.

AI could be the breakthrough that allows humanoid robots to jump from science fiction to reality

Dr. Daniel Zhou Hao is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in AI and Robotics, School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, University of Leicester. He is the founder of the Dynamics and Neural Intelligence (DANi) Lab and the Team Lead of the DriverLeics research-inspired education group in AI-powered robotics and autonomous systems.
Dr. Hao is the Leicester’s PI in the UK Space Agency (UKSA) funded PLATOR project. He is also the Robotics Lead for the ESA/NASA Mars Sample Return DWI Project (ESA Prog. ref: E/019A-02R – MSR SRP E3P2), affiliated with Space Park Leicester. Dr. Hao is the Co-I of the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Digital Transformation of Metals Industry (2024), working with School of Engineering.
Dr. Hao’s expertise encompasses Spacecraft AOCS/GNC, Robotics, and AI. His current research interests include autonomous GNC supporting in-orbit servicing and manufacturing, Large language and vision models driven robotics, Reinforcement Learning for Legged Space Robots, AI-driven Robotic Manipulation, and AI for Space Sciences.

The Encounters Trilogy

Garry Kennard is a painter, writer and founding director of Art and Mind (www.artandmind.org). A fascination with how the brain reacts to works of art has lead Kennard to research, write and lecture on these topics. With Rita Carter and Annabel Huxley he devised and directed the unique Art and Mind Festivals which attracted leading artists and scientists to explore what light the brain sciences can throw on contemporary culture.