protonfish

Unfortunately, it's not that easy. Axon terminals of neurons release neurotransmitters. We know of dozens of different types, but are not certain that we know about all of them yet. The same synapse can release multiple different neurotransmitters too, with one or more released depending on the axonic signals. And what to these chemicals do? It depends! There are receptors on the post-synaptic cell that respond to neurotransmitters, but there can be multiple different receptors that respond differently to the same neurotransmitter. Again, we aren't sure we know about all of them. The post-synaptic neuron is probably also listening to neurons of other types that signal using different neurotransmitters that it uses to determine if it should transmit an action potential or not. Oh, and invertebrates (like nematodes) send graded potentials (not action potentials like us vertebrates usually do) where the signal strength can vary.

In short - we are a long way from being able to simulate a nervous system. Our knowledge of neuronal biochemistry is not there yet.

The paper is specifically about how space is represented in the human brain. Data representing space can be encoded in many different, but functionally equivalent, ways. Showing how it could be encoded by neurons in the hippocampus is valuable to understand our brain, but philosophically not significant.

If a rigorous definition of consciousness existed, how would you be convinced that it was correct?

That's why it's so great to hear they aren't doing well. The delicious schadenfreude.

I guess it depends on how you define religion. I think that we can have faith in anything - science, your doctor, etc. that could work in a similar fashion to religious faith.

We usually wait until Christmas so we can put a giant novelty bow around it in the driveway.

It's a good way to get the kids hooked.

Precisely - these aren't "Warning signs" that are only clear in hindsight. They are proof of fraud beyond a reasonable doubt. If a person or organization has these traits and you continue to trust them, it is not an honest mistake.

Heaviside promoted Maxwell's equations and created clearer, simpler versions of them. So I think it would be a language that uses list processing and functional concepts as a feature of a syntax that is easier for beginners. Something like Python or JavaScript.

How do you give your intranet site an internal domain? Or do you make the family use the IP address?

Can this be measured? Does panpsychism predict a difference in worlds that have this property versus those that don't? I don't think it does, but maybe I'm missing something. If it's impervious to empirical evidence then I don't think it has sufficient rigor to be considered a viable hypothesis.

The problem with panpsychism is not that it is unnecessary or not anthropocentric, but that it is provably false. If everything was conscious then full anesthetic (removal of consciousness with neurotoxic chemicals) wouldn't work.

It does work though, which makes it clear that consciousness is a property produced by a mechanism in the brain.

And this small percentage of popular videos are made by a smaller amount of reputable or disreputable channels. Give me the tools and a few months and I'll clean up the English-speaking toxic content by pruning it at the source. But that won't happen because removing these dangerous, stupid, click-bait farms hurts the business. Fine, whatever. But stop claiming moderation is "impossible" or "too expensive." That is a heinous lie.

I don't see that as the case. Modern JS can do a lot out of the box but the culture looks down on "vanilla" JavaScript. I've seen way too many libraries that are nothing but a thin wrapper around native functionality. When your first (and only) technique is to look for a library, this is where you end up.

Pharmaceutical companies are evil... who knew? The problem is a medical system that rewards bad actors. The systemic problems need to be fixed. And that won't happen so we can continue to pretend that "it's a few bad apples" and nobody else's fault.