Mind & MortalityAnswer
Could a machine ever be conscious?
Chatbots can now talk like people, so here is what consciousness means, why a good conversation does not prove a mind, and what the leading theories say about machines.
TOPIC
Consciousness.
Stories and answers about #Consciousness
FROM THE QUESTION LIBRARY
Short answers, with sources.
Mind & MortalityAnswer
Do animals have feelings like we do?
Responsiveness, learning and felt experience are different claims, with different evidence.
Mind & MortalityAnswer
Is the mind just the brain?
Brain science shows the mind depends on the brain, but whether the mind is the brain and nothing more is still an open question.
Mind & MortalityAnswer
What are near-death experiences, and what do they tell us?
Many people who come close to death describe light, peace or leaving their bodies, so here is what research has found, what might explain it, and what science cannot say.
Extraordinary ClaimsAnswer
What does quantum physics really say about consciousness and healing?
The wonder is earned and the physics really is strange, so here is what experiments show, what they do not, and where the open questions about the mind actually are.
Mind & MortalityAnswer
What happens in the brain as a person dies?
Brain recordings from dying patients and animals show a rough order of events, from quiet, to a brief burst, to a slow final wave, and they leave some deep questions open.
OriginsEssay · personal view
Who Are We, Really?
To another intelligence, we might not be “humans” at all, but one highly social species of living organism—technologically remarkable, biologically related to the rest of life, and still learning what consciousness means.
Mind & MortalityExplainer
What Happens When We Die?
Medicine can describe how the body and brain shut down. Whether anything of us continues is a question science cannot reach, and traditions answer it differently.
Mind & MortalityExplainer
What Is Consciousness?
Science can map which brain activity goes with experience. Why any of it feels like something from the inside remains one of the great open questions.
Mind & MortalityExplainer
What Do Near-Death Experiences Tell Us?
Near-death experiences are real experiences that can change lives. What causes them, and what they mean, is still an open scientific question.
Extraordinary ClaimsClaim examination
Are We Living in a Simulation?
What a famous 2003 argument really claims, how scientists have tried to test the idea, and where science runs out.